i 


p-p^'/^"^ 


DICKENS 
AS    AN     EDUCATOR 


BY 

JAMES    L.    HUGHES 

INSPECTOR    OF    SCHOOLS,    TORONTO 

AUTHOR   OF    FROEBEL's   EDUCATIONAL   LAWS 

MISTAKES   IN   TEACHING,   ETC. 


•    » '    >    J     ) 


NEW   YORK    AND    LONDON 

D.  APPLETON   AND   COMPANY 
1913 


Copyright,  1900, 
By   D.   APPLETON   AND    COMPANY. 


MA7N  LFBRARY  ' 


ElECTROTYFED  AND  PRINTED 

AT  THE  Appi^ton  P.t:::;ss,  U.S.A. 


h 


EDITOE'S   PEEFACE. 


The  following  pages  are  sufficient  to  establish  the 
claim  of  Mr.  Hughes  for  Dickens  as  an  educational  re- 
f  ormer — the  greatest  that  England  has  produced.  It  will 
be  admitted  that  he  has  done  more  than  any  one  else  to 
secure  for  the  child  a  considerate  treatment  of  his  tender 
age.  "  It  is  a  crime  against  a  child  to  rob  it  of  its  child- 
hood." This  principle  was  announced  by  Dickens,  and  it 
has  come  to  be  generally  recognised  and  adopted.  Grad- 
ually it  is  changing  the  methods  of  primary  instruction 
and  bringing  into  vogue  a  milder  form  of  discipline  and 
a  more  stimulative  teaching — grousing  the  child's  self- 
activity  instead  of  repressing  it. 

The  child  is  born  with  animal  instincts  and  tendencies, 
it  is  true,  but  he  has  all  the  possibilities  of  human  nature. 
The  latter  can  be  developed  best  by  a  treatment  which 
takes  for  granted  the  child's  preference  to  adopt  what 
is  good  rather  than  what  is  bad  in  social  customs  and 
usages. 

The  child,  it  is  true,  is  uneven  in  his  proclivities,  hav- 
ing some  bad  ones  and  some  good  ones.  The  true  peda- 
gogy uses  the  good  inclinations  as  a  lever  by  which  to 
correct  bad  ones.  The  teacher  recognises  what  is  good 
in  the  child's  disposition  and  endeavours  to  build  on  it  a 

v 


vi  DICKENS  AS  AN  EDUCATOR. 

self-respect  which  may  at  all  times  be  invoked  against 
temptations  to  bad  conduct.  Child  depravity  sometimes 
exists,  but  it  can  generally  be  traced  to  injudicious  meth- 
ods of  education  in  the  family,  the  school,  or  the  com- 
m.unity.  Dickens  has  laid  so  much  emphasis  on  defects 
of  method  in  these  three  directions  that  he  has  made  the 
generation  in  which  he  lived  and  the  next  succeed- 
ing one  sensitively  conscious  of  them.  He  has  even 
caricatured  them  with  such  vehemence  of  style  as  to  make 
our  ideals  so  vivid  that  we  see  at  once  any  wrong  tendency 
in  its  very  beginning. 

Walter  Scott,  in  his  schoolmasters,  has  caricatured 
pedantry;  so  has  Shakespeare.  But  Dickens  has  discov- 
ered a  variety  of  types  of  pedantry  and  made  them  all 
easily  recognisable  and  odious  to  us.  More  than  this,  he 
has  attacked  the  evil  of  cramming,  the  evil  of  isolation 
from  the  family  in  the  boarding  school  for  too  young 
children,  and  the  evil  of  uninteresting  instruction.  What- 
ever is  good  and  reasonable  for  the  child  to  know  should 
be  made  interesting  to  the  child,  and  the  teacher  is  to  be 
considered  incompetent  who  can  not  find  in  the  life  his- 
tories of  his  class  threads  of  daily  experience  and  present 
interest  to  which  he  can  attach  every  point  that  the  regu- 
lar lesson  contains. 

Dickens  has  done  a  great  work  in  directing  the  atten- 
tion of  society  to  its  public  institutions — especially  to  its 
orphan  asylums  and  poorhouses.  The  chill  which  the  in- 
fant gets  when  it  comes  in  direct  contact  with  the  formal- 
ity of  a  state  institution,  or  even  a  religious  institution, 
without  the  mediation  of  the  family,  is  portrayed  so  well 
that  every  reader  of  Dickens  feels  it  by  sympathy.  So, 
too,  in  those  families  of  public  men  or  women  or  in  those 
of  the  directors  of  industry  or  commerce  who  crush  out 


EDITORS  PREFACE.  vii 

the  true  family  life  by  bringing  home  their  unrelaxing 
business  manners  and  trying  to  regulate  the  family  as 
they  regulate  the  details  of  a  great  business  house — the 
reading  world  has  imbibed  a  sympathy  for  the  rights  of 
the  home.  Free  childhood  and  the  culture  of  individ- 
uality has  become  a  watchword. 

Above  all,  Dickens  has  introduced  a  reform  as  to  the 
habit  of  terrorizing  children.  Corporal  punishment  has  i/^ 
diminished  to  one  fourth  of  its  former  amount,  and 
Charles  Dickens  is  the  prophet  to  whom  the  reform  owes 
its  potency.  In  fact,  the  habit  of  finding  in  the  good 
tendencies  of  the  child  the  levers  with  which  to  move 
him  to  the  repression  of  his  bad  impulses  has  placed  in 
the  hands  of  the  professional  teacher  the  means  of  gov- 
erning the  child  without  appeal  to  force  except  in  the 
rarest  cases. 

The  tendency  to  caricature  an  evil  has  its  dangers,  of 
course,  and  Dickens,  like  all  the  other  educational  re- 
formers, has  often  condemned  as  entirely  unworthy  of  tol- 
eration what  has  really  in  it  some  good  reason  for  its 
existence.  It  w^as  the  abuse  that  needed  correction. 
Reform  instead  of  revolution  should  have  been  recom- 
mended, but  the  reformer  often  gets  so  heated  in  his  con- 
test with  superficial  evil  that  he  attacks  what  is  funda- 
mentally good.  He  cuts  down  the  tree  when  it  needed 
only  the  removal  of  a  twig  infested  with  caterpillars. 
This  defect  of  the  reformer  renders  necessary  a  new  re- 
former, and  thus  arises  a  pendulum  swing  of  educational 
method  from  one  extreme  to  another. 

Dickens  shares  with  all  reformers  some  of  their  weak- 
nesses, but  he  does  not  share  his  most  excellent  qualities 
with  many  of  them.  He  stands  apart  and  alone  as  one  of 
the  most  potent  infiuences  of  social  reform  in  the  nine- 


V 


Viii  DICKENS  AS  AN  EDUCATOR. 

teenth  century,  and  therefore  deserves  to  be  read  and 
studied  by  all  who  have  to  do  with  schools  and  by  all 
parents  everywhere  in  our  day  and  generation. 

W.  T.  Harris. 
Washington,  D.  C,  October  12, 1900. 


AUTHOE'S   PKEFACE. 


This  book  has  two  purposes:  to  prove  that  Dickens 
was  the  great  apostle  of  the  "  new  education "  to  the 
English-speaking  world,  and  to  bring  into  connected  form, 
under  appropriate  headings,  the  educational  principles  of 
one  of  the  world's  greatest  educators,  and  one  of  its  two 
most  sympathetic  friends  of  childhood. 

Dickens  was  the  most  profound  exponent  of  the  kin- 
dergarten and  the  most  comprehensive  student  of  child- 
hood that  England  has  yet  produced.  He  was  one  of  the 
first  great  advocates  of  a  national  system  of  schools,  and 
his  revelations  of  the  ignorance  and  the  intellectual  and 
spiritual  destitution  of  the  children  of  the  poor  led  to 
the  deep  interest  which  ultimately  brought  about  the 
establishment  of  free  schools  in  England. 

He  was  essentially  a  child  trainer  rather  than  a 
teacher.  In  the  twenty-eight  schools  described  in  his 
writings,  and  in  the  training  of  his  army  of  little  chil- 
dren  in  institutions  and  homes,  he  reveals  nearly  every 
form  of  bad  training  resulting  from  ignorance,  selfishness, 
indifference,  unwise  zeal,  unphilosophic  philosophy,  and 
un-Christian  theology.  No  other  writer  has  attacked  so 
many  phases  of  wrong  training,  unjust  treatment,  and 
ill  usage  of  childhood. 

ix 


X  DICKENS  AS  AN  EDUCATOR. 

He  is  the  most  distinctive  champion  of  the  rights  of 
childhood.  He  struck  the  bravest  blows  against  corporal 
punishment,  and  against  all  forms  of  coercive  tyranny 
toward  the  child  in  homes,  institutions,  and  schools,  even 
condemning  the  dogmatic  will  control  of  such  a  placid. 
Christian  woman  as  Mrs.  Crisparkle.  He  demanded  a  free, 
real,  joyous  childhood,  rich  in  all  a  child's  best  experiences 
and  interests,  so  that  "  childhood  may  ripen  in  child- 
hood." He  pleaded  for  the  development  of  the  individual- 
ity of  each  child.  He  taught  the  wisdom  of  giving  a  child 
proper  food,  and  he  showed  the  vital  importance  of  real 
sympathy  with  the  child,  not  mere  consideration  for  him. 
He  was  the  English  father  of  true  reverence  for  the  child. 

But  Dickens  studied  the  methods  of  cultivating  the 
minds  of  children,  as  well  as  their  character  development. 
He  exposed  the  evils  of  cramming  more  vigorously  than 
any  other  writer.  He  taught  the  essential  character  of 
the  imagination  in  intellectual  and  spiritual  development. 
He  showed  the  need  of  correlation  of  studies,  and  of  ap- 
perceptive centres  of  feeling  and  thought  in  order  to  com- 
prehend, and  assimilate,  and  transform  into  definite  power 
the  knowledge  and  thought  that  is  brought  to  our  minds. 

It  is  said  by  some,  who  see  but  the  surface  of  the 
work  of  Dickens,  that  his  work  is  done.  Much  of  the  good 
work  for  which  he  lived  has  been  done,  but  much  more 
remains  to  be  done.  Men  are  but  beginning  the  work 
of  child  study  and  of  rational  education.  The  twentieth 
century  will  understand  Dickens  better  than  the  nine- 
teenth has  understood  him.  His  profound  philosophy  is 
only  partially  comprehended  yet,  even  by  the  leaders  in 
educational  work.  Teachers  and  all  students  of  child- 
hood will  find  in  his  true  feeling  and  rich  thought  revela- 
tion and  inspiration. 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER 

I. — The  place  of  Dickens  among  educators 

II. — Infant  gardens 

III. — The  overthrow  of  coercion  . 

rv. — The  doctrine  of  child  depravity 

V. — Cramming 

VI. — Free  childhood 

VII. — Individuality     .... 

VIII. — The  culture  of  the  imagination 

IX. — Sympathy  with  childhood 

X. — Child  study  and  child  nature 

XI. — Bad  training      .... 

XII. — Good  training    .... 

XIII. — Community 

XIV. — Nutrition  as  a  factor  in  education 

XV. — Minor  schools        .... 

XVI. — Miscellaneous  educational  principles 

XVII. — The  training  of  poor,  neglected,  and  defective 

children 

xi 


PAOB 
1 

15 

29 

87 

96 

117 

128 

136 

162 

181 

188 

218 

235 

244 

258 

285 

304 


3   »_        O  ".  »       3 


DICKENS   AS   AN   EDUCATOR. 


CHAPTEK   I. 

THE   PLACE   OF    DICKENS   AMONG   EDUCATORS. 

t 

Dickens  was  England's  greatest  educational  reformer. 
His  views  were  not  given  to  the  world  in  the  form  of 
ordinary  didactic  treatises,  but  in  the  form  of  object  les- 
sons in  the  most  entertaining  of  all  stories.  Millions  have 
read  his  books,  whereas  but  hundreds  would  have  read 
them  if  he  had  written  his  ideals  in  the  form  of  direct, 
systematic  exposition.  He  is  certainly  not  less  an  edu- 
cator because  his  books  have  been  widely  read. 

The  highest  form  of  teaching  is  the  informal,  the  indi- 
rect, the  incidental.  The  fact  that  his  educational  prin- 
ciples are  revealed  chiefly  by  the  evolution  of  the  charac- 
ters in  his  novels  and  stories,  instead  of  by  the  direct 
philosophic  statements  of  scientific  pedagogy  or  psychol- 
ogy, gives  Dickens  higher  rank  as  an  educator,  not  only 
because  it  gives  him  much  wider  influence,  but  because  it 
makes  his  teaching  more  effective  by  arousing  deep, 
strong  feeling  to  give  permanency  and  propulsive  force 
to  his  great  thoughts. 

"Was  Dickens  consciously  and  intentionally  an  edu- 
cator? The  prefaces  to  his  novels;  the  preface  to  his 
Household  Words;  the  educational  articles  he  wrote;  the 
prominence  given  in  his  books  to  child  training  in  homes, 
institutions,  and  schools;  the  statements  of  the  highest 
educational  philosphy  found  in  his  writings;  and  espe- 
cially the  clearness  of  his  insight  and  the  profoundness  of 
his  educational  thought,  as  shown  by  his  condemnation  of 
the  wrong  and  his  appreciation  of  the  right  in  teaching 
and  training  the  child,  prove  beyond  question  that  he  was 

1 


2    ''       '  IJICFBNS  AS  AN   EDUCATOR. 

not  Wily  bi'pad  and  tvu*?  in  his  sympathy  with  childhood, 
but  that  he  was  a  careful  and  progressive  student  of  the 
fundamental  principles  of  education. 

Dickens  deals  with  twenty-eight  schools  in  his  writ- 
ings, evidently  with  definite  purposes  in  each  case :  "  Mi- 
nerva House,"  in  Sketches  by  Boz ;  "  Dotheboys  Hall,"  in 
Nicholas  Nickleby;  Mr. -Marton's  two  schools,  Miss  Mon- 
flather  s  school,  and  Mrs.  Wackles's  school,  in  Old  Curios- 
ity Shop ;  Dr.  Blimber's  school  and  "  The  Grinders' " 
school,  in  Dombey  and  Son;  Mr.  Creakle's  school.  Dr. 
Strong's  school,  Agnes's  school,  and  the  school  Uriah 
Heep  attended,  in  David  Copperfield ;  the  school  at  which 
Esther  was  a  day  boarder  and  Miss  Donney's  school,  in 
Bleak  JHouse;  Mr.  McChoakumchild's  school,  in  Hard 
Times;  Mr.  Wopsle's  great  aunt's  school,  in  Great  Expec- 
tations; the  evening  school  attended  by  Charley  Hexam, 
Bradley  Headstone's  school,  and  Miss  Peecher's  school,  in 
Our  Mutual  Friend ;  Phcebe's  school,  in  Barbox  Brothers ; 
Mrs.  Lemon's  school,  in  Holiday  Romance ;  Jemmy  Lirri- 
per's  school,  in  Mrs.  Lirriper's  Lodgings;  Miss  Pupford's 
school,  in  Tom  Tiddler's  Ground ;  the  school  described  in 
The  Haunted  House;  Miss  Twinkleton's  seminary,  in 
Edwin  Drood;  the  schools  of  the  Stepney  Union;  The 
Schoolboy's  Story;  and  Our  School. 

In  addition  to  these  twenty-eight  schools,  he  describes 
a  real  school  in  American  Notes,  and  makes  brief  refer- 
ences to  The  Misses  Nettingall's  establishment.  Mr.  Crip- 
ples's  academy,  Dro^wey  and  Grimmer's  school,  the  Foun- 
dation school  attended  by  George  Silverman,  Scrooge's 
school,  Pecksniff's  school  for  architects,  Fagin's  school 
for  training  thieves,  and  three  dancing  schools,  conducted 
by  Mr.  Baps,  Signer  Billsmethi,  and  Mr.  Tuiweydrop.  He 
introduces  Mr.  Pocket,  George  Silverman,  and  Canon 
Crisparkle  as  tutors,  and  Mrs.  General,  Miss  Lane,  and 
Ruth  Pinch  as  governesses.  Mrs.  Sapsea  had  been  the 
proprietor  of  an  academy  in  Cloisterham.  One  of  the 
first  sketches  by  "  Boz  "  was  Our  Schoolmaster,  and  his 
books  are  full  of  illustrations  of  wrong  training  of  chil- 
dren in  homes,  in  institutions,  and  by  professional  child 
trainers  such  as  Mrs.  Pipchin. 


THE   PLACE   OF   DICKENS  AMONG  EDUCATORS.       3 

Clearly  Dickens  intended  to  reveal  the  best  educa- 
tional ideaJs,  and  to  expose  what  he  regarded  as  weak  or 
wrong-  in  school  methods,  and  especially  in  child  training. 
^  Dickens  was  the  first  great  English  student  of  the 
kindergarten.  His  article  on  Infant  Gardens,  published 
in  Household  Words  in  1855,  is  one  of  the  most  compre- 
hensive articles  ever  written  on  the  kindergarten  philos- 
ophy. It  shows  a  perfect  appreciation  of  the  physical, 
intellectual,  and  spiritual  aims  of  Froebel,  and  a  clear 
recognition  of  the  value  of  right  early  training  and  of 
the  influence  of  free  self-activity  in  the  development  of 
individual  power  and  character. 

Dickens  is  beyond  comparison  the  chief  English  apos- 
tle of  childhood,  and  its  leading  champion  in  securing  a 
just,  intelligent,  and  considerate  recognition  of  its  rights 
by  adulthood,  which  till  his  time  had  been  deliberately 
coercive  and  almost  universally  tyrannical  in  dealing  with 
children.  He  entered  more  fully  than  any  other  English 
author  into  sympathy  with  childhood  from  the  standpoint 
of  the  child.  Other  educators  and  philanthropists  have 
shown  consideration  for  children,  but  Dickens  had  the 
perfect  sympathy  with  childhood  that  sees  and  feels  wiih 
the  child,  not  merely  for  him. 

Dickens  attacked  all  forms  of  coercion  in  child  train- 
ing. He  discussed  fourteen  types  of  coercion,  from  the 
brutal  corporal  punishment  of  Squeers  and  Creakle  in 
schools,  of  Bumble  and  the  Christian  philanthropist  with 
the  white  waistcoat  in  institutions,  and  of  the  Murdstones 
and  Mrs.  Gargery  in  homes,  to  the  gentle  but  dwarfing 
firmness  of  the  dominant  will  of  placid  Mrs.  Crisparkle. 
He  condemned  all  coercion  because  it  prevents  the  full 
development  of  selfhood,  and  makes  men  negative  instead 
of  positive. 

Among  the  many  improvements  made  in  child  train- 
ing none  is  more  complete  than  the  change  in  discipline. 
For  this  change  the  world  is  indebted  chiefly  to  Eroebel 
and  Dickens,  Froebel  revealed  the  true  philosophy,  Dick- 
ens gave  it  wings;  Froebel  gave  the  thought,  Dickens 
made  the  thought  clear  and  strong  by  arousing  energetic 
feeling  in  harmony  with  it.         \ 


4  DICKENS  AS  AN  EDUCATOR, 

Thought  makes  slow  progress  without  a  basis  of  feel- 
ing. Dickens  opened  the  hearts  of  humanity  in  sympathy 
for  suffering  childhood,  and  thus  gave  Froebel's  philos- 
ophy definiteness  and  propulsive  power.  The  darkest 
clouds  have  been  cleared  away  from  child  life  during  the 
past  fifty  years.  Teachers,  managers  of  institutions  for 
the  care  of  children,  and  parents  are  now  severely  pun- 
ished by  the  laws  of  civilized  countries  for  offences 
against  children  that  were  approved  by  the  most  en- 
lightened Christian  philosophy  at  the  time  of  Froebel 
and  Dickens  as  necessary  duties  essential  in  the  proper 
training  of  childhood. 

Dickens  helped  to  break  the  bonds  of  the  doctrine  of 
child  depravity.  This  doctrine  had  a  most  depressing  in- 
fluence on  educators.  It  was  not  possible  to  reverence  a 
child  so  long  as  he  was  regarded  as  a  totally  depraved 
thing.  Froebel  and  Dickens  did  not  teach  that  a  child  is 
totally  divine,  but  they  did  believe  that  every  child  pos- 
sesses certain  elements  of  divinity  which  constitute  self- 
hood or  individuality,  and  that  if  this  selfhood  is  devel- 
oped in  conscious  unity  with  the  Divine  Fatherhood  the 
child  will  attain  to  complete  manhood.  This  thought 
gives  the  educator  a  new  and  a  higher  attitude  toward 
childhood.  The  child  is  no  longer  a  thing  to  be  repressed, 
but  a  being  to  be  developed.  Men  are  not  persistently 
dwarfed  now  by  deliberate  efforts  to  define  a  blighting  con- 
sciousness of  weakness;  they  are  stimulated  to  broader 
effort  and  higher  purpose  by  a  true  self-consciousness  of 
individual  power.  The  philosophy  that  trains  men  to  rec- 
ognise responsibility  for  the  good  in  their  nature  is  in- 
finitely more  productive  educationally  than  that  which 
teaches  men  responsibility  for  the  evil  in  their  nature. 

Dickens  taught  that  loving  sympathy  is  the  highest 
qualification  of  a  true  teacher.  He  showed  this  to  be 
true  by  both  positive  and  negative  illustrations.  Mr. 
Marton,  the  old  schoolmaster  in  Old  Curiosity  Shop, 
was  a  perfect  type  of  a  sympathetic  teacher.  Dr.  Strong 
was  "  the  ideal  of  the  whole  school,  for  he  was  the  kindest 
of  men."  Phoebe's  school  was  such  a  good  place  for  the 
little  ones,  because  she  loved  them.     Like  Mr.  Marton, 


THE   PLACE   OP  DICKENS  AMONG  EDUCATORS.        5 

she  had  not  studied  the  new  systems  of  teaching,  but  lov- 
ing sympathy  gave  her  power  and  made  her  school  a  place 
in  which  the  good  in  human  hearts  grew  and  blossomed 
naturally. 

"  You  are  fond  of  children  and  learned  in  the  new  sys- 
tems of  teaching  them,"  said  Mr.  Jackson. 

"  Very  fond  of  them,"  replied  Phoebe,  "  but  I  know 
nothing  of  teaching  beyond  the  pleasure  I  have  in  it,  and 
the  pleasure  it  gives  me  when  they  learn.  Perhaps  your 
overhearing  my  little  scholars  sing  some  of  their  lessons 
has  led  you  so  far  astray  as  to  think  me  a  good  teacher? 
Ah,  I  thought  so !  'No,  I  have  only  read  and  been  told 
about  that  system.  It  seems  so  pretty  and  pleasant,  and 
to  treat  them  so  like  the  merry  robins  they  are,  that  I 
took  up  with  it  in  my  little  way." 

She  had  heard  of  the  kindergarten  and  had  caught 
some  of  its  spirit  of  sympathy  with  the  child,  but  she  did 
not  understand  its  methods.  Jemmy  Lirriper  received 
perfectly  sympathetic  treatment  from  Mrs.  Lirriper  and 
the  Major;  Agnes  loved  her  little  scholars;  Esther,  who 
sympathized  with  everybody,  loved  her  pupils,  and  was 
beloved  by  them;  and  the  Bachelor,  who  introduced  Mr. 
Marton  to  his  second  school,  was  a  genuine  boy  in  his 
comprehensive  sympathy  with  real,  boyish  boyhood. 

So  throughout  all  his  books  Dickens  pleads  for  kindly 
treatment  for  the  child,  and  for  complete  sympathy  with 
him  in  his  childish  feelings  and  interests.  He  gave  the 
child  the  place  of  honour  in  literature  for  the  first  time, 
and  he  aroused  the  heart  of  the  Christian  world  to  the  fact 
that  it  was  treating  the  child  in  a  very  un-Christlike  way. 
He  pleaded  for  a  better  education  for  the  child,  for  a  free 
childhood,  for  greater  liberty  in  the  home  and  in  the 
school,  for  fuller  sympathy  especially  at  the  time  when 
childhood  merges  into  youth  and  when  the  mysteries  of 
life  have  begun  to  make  themselves  conscious  to  the 
young  mind  and  heart.  The  poorer  the  child  the  greater 
the  need  he  revealed. 

Canon  Crisparkle,  Esther  Summerson,  Mr.  Jarndyce, 
Joe  Gargery,  Rose  Maylie,  Allan  Woodcourt,  Betty  Hig- 
den,  Mr.  Sangsby,  the  Old  Schoolmaster,  the  Bachelor, 
2 


6  DICKENS  AS  AN  EDUCATOR. 

Mrs.  Lirriper,  Major  Jackmann,  Doctor  Marigold,  Agnes 
Wickfield,  Mr.  George,  and  Mr.  Brownlow  are  types  of 
the  people  with  whom  Dickens  would  fill  the  world — men 
and  women  whose  hearts  were  overflowing  with  true  sym- 
pathy. Esther  Summerson  is  the  best  type  of  perfect 
sympathy  to  be  met  with  in  literature.  She  expressed 
the  central  principle  of  Dickens's  philosophy  regarding 
sympathy  when  she  said :  "  When  I  love  a  person  very 
<  tenderly  indeed  my  understanding  seems  to  brighten ;  my 
comprehension  is  quickened  when  my  affection  is." 

The  need  of  sympathy  with  childhood  was  revealed  by 
Dickens  most  strongly  by  the  cruelty,  the  coercion,  and 
the  harshness  of  such  characters  as  Squeers,  Creakle, 
Bumble,  the  Murdstones,  Mrs.  Gargery,  John  Willet,  Mrs. 
Pipchin,  Mrs.  Clennam,  and  the  teachers  in  The  Grinders' 
school. 

Dickens's  description  of  Dr.  Blimber's  school  is  the 
most  profound  criticism  of  the  cramming  system  of  teach- 
ing that  was  ever  written.  He  treats  the  same  subject 
also  in  Hard  Times,  Christmas  Stories,  and  A  Holiday 
Komance. 

The  vital  importance  of  a  free,  rich  childhood,  the 
value  of  the  imagination  as  the  basis  of  intellectual  and 
spiritual  development,  the  folly  of  the  Herbartian  psy- 
chology relating  to  the  soul,  the  error  of  regarding  fact- 
storing  as  the  chief  aim  of  education,  and  the  terrible 
evils  resulting  from  the  tyranny  of  adulthood  in  dealing 
with  childhood  are  all  treated  very  ably  in  Hard  Times, 
the  most  advanced  and  most  profound  of  Dickens's  works 
from  the  standpoint  of  the  educator. 

The  need  of  a  real  childhood,  so  well  expressed  in 

-V.         Froebel's  maxim,  "  Let  childhood  ripen  in  childhood,"  is 

shown  also  in  Nicholas  Nickleby,   Old   Curiosity   Shop, 

Martin  Chuzzlewit,  Barnaby  Rudge,  Dombey  and   Son, 

Great  Expectations,  and  Edwin  Drood. 

The  true  reverence  for  individual  selfhood  is  shown  in 
Dombey  and  Son,  David  Copperfield,  Bleak  House,  Hard 
Times,  Little  Dorrit,  Our  Mutual  Friend,  and  Edwin 
Drood. 

The  wisdom  of  studying  the  subject  of  nutrition  as 


THE  PLACE  OF  DICKENS  AMONG  EDUCATORS.       7 

one  of  the  most  important  subjects  connected  with  the 
development  of  children  physically,  intellectually,  and 
morally,  and  the  meanness  or  carelessness  too  frequently 
shown  in  feeding  children,  were  taught  in  Oliver  Twist, 
Old  Curiosity  Shop,  Martin  Chuzzlewit,  Dombey  and  Son, 
David  Copperfield,  Bleak  House,  Great  Expectations, 
Edwin  Drood,  Christmas  Stories,  and  American  Notes. 

Play  as  an  essential  factor  in  education  is  treated  in 
Martin  Chuzzlewit,  Dombey  and  Son,  David  Copperfield, 
and  American  Xotes. 

The  folly  of  the  old  practice  of  attempting  to  educate 
by  polishing  the  surface  of  the  character,  of  training 
from  without  instead  of  from  within,  is  revealed  in  Bleak 
House  and  Little  Dorrit. 

Bleak  House  discusses  the  contents  of  children's 
minds  and  the  need  of  early  experiences  to  form  apper- 
ceptive centres  of  feeling  and  thought  in  a  comprehensive 
and  suggestive  manner. 

The  need  of  practising  the  fundamental  law  of  co- 
operation and  the  sharing  of  responsibilities  and  duties, 
as  the  foundation  for  the  true  comprehension  of  the  law 
of  community,  is  shown  in  Barnaby  Eudge,  David  Cop- 
perfield, Dombey  and  Son,  and  Little  Dorrit. 

The  need  of  child  study  is  suggested  in  David  Copper- 
field  and  Bleak  House. 

The  value  o^.  joyousness  in  the  development  of  true, 
strong  character  is  discussed  in  Nicholas  Nickleby,  Bar- 
naby Budge,  Old  Curiosity  Shop,  Martin  Chuzzlewit, 
Dombey  and  Son,  David  Copperfield,  Hard  Times,  Little 
Dorrit,  Great  Expectations,  and  Edwin  Drood. 

Dickens  was  one  of  the  first  Englishmen  to  see  the 
need  of  normal  schools  to  train  teachers,  and  to  advocate 
the  abolition  of  uninspected  private  schools  and  the  estab- 
lishment of  national  schools.  He  taught  these  ideals  in 
the  preface  to  Nicholas  Nickleby,  issued  in  1839,  so  that 
he  very  early  caught  the  spirit  of  Mann  and  Barnard 
in  America,  and  saw  the  wisdom  of  their  efforts  to  estab- 
lish schools  supported,  controlled,  and  directed  by  the 
state. 

He  says,  in  his  preface  to  Nicholas  Nickleby : 


^  DICKENS  AS  AN  EDUCATOK. 

Of  the  monstrous  neg-lect  of  education  in  Eng-land,  and 
the  disregard  of  it  by  the  state  as  a  means  of  forming' 
g'ood  or  bad  citizens,  and  miserable  or  happy  men,  this 
class  of  schools  long  afforded  a  notable  example.  Although 
any  man  who  had  proved  his  unfitness  for  any  other 
occupation  in  life,  was  free,  without  examination  or  quali- 
fication, to  open  a  school  anywhere;  although  preparation 
for  the  functions  he  undertook  was  required  in  the  sur- 
g"eon  who  assisted  to  bring  a  boy  into  the  world,  or  might 
one  day  assist,  perhaps,  to  send  him  out  of  it;  in  the  chem- 
ist, the  attorney,  the  butcher,  the  baker,  the  candlestick- 
maker;  the  whole  round  of  crafts  and  trades,  the  school- 
master excepted;  and  although  schoolmasters,  as  a  race, 
were  the  blockheads  and  impostors  who  might  naturally 
be  expected  to  spring  from  such  a  state  oi  tilings,  and  to 
flourish  in  it,  these  Yorkshire  schoolmasters  were  the 
lowest  and  most  rotten  round  in  the  whole  ladder.  Trad- 
ers in  the  avarice,  indifference,  or  imbecility  of  parents, 
and  the  helplessness  of  children;  ignorant,  sordid,  brutal 
men,  to  whom  few  considerate  persons  would  have  in- 
trusted the  board  and  lodging  of  a  horse  or  a  dog;  they 
formed  the  worthy  corner-stone  of  a  structure  which,  for 
absurdity  and  magnificent  high-handed  laissez-aller  neglect, 
has  rarely  been  exceeded  in  the  world. 

We  hear  sometimes  of  an  action  for  damages  against 
the  unqualified  medical  practitioner,  who  has  deformed  a 
broken  limb  in  pretending  to  heal  it.  But  what  about  the 
hundreds  of  thousands  of  minds  that  have  been  deformed 
forever  by  the  incapable  pettifoggers  who  have  pretended 
to  form  them? 

I  make  mention  of  the  race,  as  of  the  Yorkshire  school- 
masters, in  the  past  tense.  Though  it  has  not  yet  finally 
disappeared,  it  is  dwindling  daily.  A  long  day's  work  re- 
mains to  be  done  about  us  in  the  way  of  education,  Heaven 
knows;  but  great  improvements  and  facilities  toward  the 
attainment  of  a  good  one  have  been  furnished  of  late 
years. 

This  leaves  no  doubt  in  regard  to  the  conscious  pur- 
pose of  Dickens  in  writing  with  definite  educational  plans. 

Incidentally  he  discusses  every  phase  of  what  is  called 
the  "  new  education."  He  was  the  first  and  the  greatest 
English  student  of  Froebel,  and  his  writings  gave  wings 
to  the  profound  thought  of  the  greatest  philosopher  of 


THE  PLACE   OF   DICKENS  AMONG  EDUCATORS.        ^ 

childhood.  Eroebel  revealed  the  truth  that  feeling  is  the 
basis  of  thought.  In  harmony  with  this  great  iDsyeho- 
logical  principle,  it  may  fairly  be  claimed  that  the  works 
of  Dickens  so  fully  aroused  the  heart  of  the  civilized  world 
to  the  wrongs  inflicted  on  childhood,  and  the  grievous 
errors  committed  in  training  children,  as  to  prepare  the 
minds  of  all  who  read  his  books  for  the  conscious  revela- 
tion of  the  imperfections  of  educational  systems  and 
methods,  and  the  imperative  need  of  radical  educational 
refonns. 

The  intense  feeling  caused  by  the  writings  of  Dick- 
ens prepared  the  way  for  the  thought  of  Eroebel. 
Dickens  studied  Eroebel  with  great  care.  He  vras  not 
merely  a  student  of  theoretical  principles,  but  he  was  a 
very  frequent  visitor  to  the  first  kindergarten  opened  in 
England.  Madame  Kraus-Boelte,  who  assisted  Madame 
Eonge  in  the  first  kindergarten  opened  in  London,  says 
in  a  recent  letter :  "  I  remember  very  distinctly  the  fre- 
quent visits  made  by  Mr.  Dickens  to  Madame  Rouge's 
kindergarten.  He  always  appeared  to  be  deeply  inter- 
ested, and  would  sometimes  stay  during  the  whole 
session.'" 

The  description  of  the  schools  of  the  Stepney  Union 
in  the  Uncommercial  Traveller  shows  how  keenly  appre- 
ciative Dickens  was  of  all  true  new  ideals  in  educational 
work.  These  were  charity  schools  conducted  on  an  excel- 
lent system.  The  pupils  worked  at  industrial  occupations 
half  of  their  school  hours,  and  studied  the  other  half. 
They  were  taught  music,  and  the  boys  had  military  drill 
and  naval  training.  They  had  no  corporal  punishment  in 
these  schools. 

Dickens  approved  most  heartily  of  everything  he  saw 
in  his  frequent  visits  to  the  schools  of  the  Stepney 
Union  except  the  work  of  one  of  the  younger  teachers, 
who  would,  in  his  opinion,  have  been  better  "  if  she  had 
shown  more  geniality."  He  commended  the  industrial 
work,  the  military  training,  the  naval  training,  the  music, 
the  discipline  without  corporal  punishment,  and  the  intel- 
lectual brightness  of  the  children.  He  pointed  out  at 
some  length  the  difference  in  interest  shown  by  the  pupils 


10  DICKENS  AS  AN   EDUCATOR. 

in  these  schools  and  by  the  pupils  in  the  school  he  him- 
self attended  when  a  boy,  and  drew  the  conclusion  very 
definitely  that  shorter  hours  of  study,  with  a  variety  of 
interesting  operations,  were  much  better  for  the  physical 
and  intellectual  development  of  children  than  long  hours 
spent  in  monotonous  work. 

The  folly  and  v/rong  of  trying  to  make  children  study 
beyond  the  fatigue  point  was  never  more  clearly  pointed 
out  than  by  Dickens  in  the  description  of  the  school  he 
attended  when  a  boy,  given  as  a  contrast  to  the  life  and 
brightness  and  interest  shown  in  the  schools  of  the  Step- 
ney Union: 

When  I  was  at  school,  one  of  seventy  boys,  I  wonder 
by  what  secret  understanding  our  attention  began  to  wan- 
der when  we  had  pored  over  our  books  for  some  hours. 
I  wonder  by  what  ingenuity  we  brought  on  that  confused 
state  of  mind  when  sense  became  nonsense,  when  figures 
wouldn't  work,  when  dead  languages  wouldn't  construe, 
when  live  languages  wouldn't  be  spoken,  when  memory 
wouldn't  come,  when  dulness  and  vacancy  wouldn't  go. 
I  can  not  remember  that  we  ever  conspired  to  be  sleepy 
after  dinner,  or  that  we  ever  particularly  wanted  to  be 
stupid,  and  to  have  flushed  faces  and  hot,  beating  heads, 
or  to  find  blank  hopelessness  and  obscurity  this  after- 
noon in  what  would  become  perfectly  clear  and  bright  in 
the  freshness  of  to-morrow  morning.  We  suffered  for 
these  things,  and  they  made  us  miserable  enough.  Nei- 
ther do  I  remember  that  we  ever  bound  ourselves,  by  any 
secret  oath  or  other  solemn  obligatior  to  find  the  seats 
getting  too  hard  to  be  sat  upon  aftei  a  certain  time;  or 
to  have  intolerable  twitches  in  our  \e^s,  rendei-ing  us  ag- 
gressive and  malicious  wdth  those  members;  or  to  be  trou- 
bled with  a  similar  uneasiness  in  our  elbows,  attended  with 
fistic  consequences  to  our  neigVioours;  or  to  carry  two 
pounds  of  lead  in  the  chest,  four  pounds  in  the  head,  and 
several  active  bluebottles  in  eeich  ear.  Yet,  for  certain,  we 
suffered  under  those  distresses,  and  were  always  charged 
at  for  labouring  under  them,  as  if  we  had  brought  them  on 
of  our  own  deliberate  act  and  deed. 

It  was  therefore  out  of  a  full  heart  and  an  enriched 
mind   that   Dickens   w^rought   the   wonderful   plots   into 


THE  PLACE   OF   DICKENS  AIvlONG  EDUCATORS.     H 

■which  he  wove  the  most  advanced  educational  ideals  of 
his  time  and  of  our  time  relating  to  the  blighting  influ- 
ence of  coercion,  the  divinity  in  the  child,  the  recogni- 
tion of  freedom  as  the  truest  process  and  highest  aim  of 
education,  the  value  of  real  sympathy,  the  importance  of 
self-activity,  the  true  reverence  for  the  child  leading  ta 
faith  in  it,  the  need  of  child  study,  the  effect  of  joyous- 
ness  on  the  child's  development,  the  benefits  of  play,  the 
influence  of  nutrition,  the  ideal  of  community,  the  im- 
portance of  the  imagination  as  a  basis  for  the  best  intel- 
lectual growth,  the  narrowness  of  utilitarianism,  the  ab- 
solute need  of  apperceptive  centres  to  which  shall  be  re- 
lated the  progressive  enlargement  and  enrichment  of  feel- 
ing and  thought  throughout  the  life  of  the  individual,  the 
arrest  of  development  and  the  sacrifice  of  power  and  life 
due  to  cramming,  and  the  weakness  of  all  educational  sys- 
tems and  methods  that  regard  fact-storing  as  the  highest 
work  of  the  teacher. 

It  has  been  said  by  critics  of  Dickens  that  he  exag- 
gerated the  defects  and  errors  in  the  characters  of  those 
whom  he  described.  Two  things  should  be  kept  in  mind, 
however.  Dickens  usually  described  the  worst,  not  the 
best  types,  and  he  "was  justified  in  revealing  a  wrong 
principle  or  practice  in  the  strongest  possible  light,  in 
order  to  make  it  more  easily  recognisable  and  more  com- 
pletely repugnant  to  the  aroused  feeling  and  startled 
thought  of  humanity.  He  was  writing  with  the  definite 
purpose  of  making  the  world  so  thoroughly  hate  the  wrong 
in  education  and  child  training  as  to  lead  to  definite  prac- 
tical reforms. 

Dickens  himself  did  not  admit  the  justness  of  the 
charge  of  exaggeration.  His  coarsest,  most  ignorant,  and 
most  brutal  teacher  is  Squeers,  yet  he  says  "  Mr.  Squeers 
and  his  school  are  faint  and  feeble  pictures  of  an  exist- 
ing reality,  purposely  subdued  and  kept  down  lest  they 
should  be  deemed  impossible.  There  are  upon  record 
trials  at  law  in  which  damages  have  been  sought  as  a 
poor  recompense  for  lasting  agonies  and  disfigurements 
inflicted  upon  children  by  the  treatment  of  the  master  in 
these  places,  involving  such  offensive  and  foul  details  of 


12  DICKENS  AS   AN  EDUCATOR. 

neglect,  cruelty,  and  disease  as  no  writer  of  fiction  would 
have  the  boldness  to  imagine.  Since  the  author  has  been 
engaged  upon  these  Adventures  he  has  received,  from, 
private  quarters  far  beyond  the  reach  of  suspicion  or  dis- 
trust, accounts  of  atrocities,  in  the  perpetration  of  which 
upon  neglected  or  repudiated  children  these  schools  have 
been  the  main  instruments,  very  far  exceeding  any  that 
appear  in  these  pages." 

Dickens  discusses  the  charge  of  exaggeration  in  the 
preface  to  Martin  Chuzzlewit.     He  says: 

What  is  exaggeration  to  one  class  of  minds  and  percep- 
tions, is  plain  truth  to  another.  That  which  is  commonly 
called  a  long-sight,  perceives  in  a  prospect  innumerable 
features  and  bearings  nonexistent  to  a  shortsighted  per- 
son. I  sometimes  ask  myself  whether  there  may  occasion- 
ally be  a  difference  of  this  kind  between  some  writers  and 
some  readers;  whether  it  is  always  the  writer  who  colours 
highlj^  or  whether  it  is  now  and  then  the  reader  whose  eye 
for  colour  is  a  little  dull? 

On  this  head  of  exaggeration  I  have  a  positive  experi- 
■ence  more  curious  than  the  speculation  I  have  just  set 
down.  It  is  this:  I  have  never  touched  a  character  pre- 
cisely from  the  life,  but  some  counterpart  of  that  charac- 
ter has  incredulously  asked  me:  "  Now  really,  did  I  ever 
really  see  one  like  it?  " 

All  the  Pecksniff  family  upon  earth  are  quite  agreed,  I 
believe,  that  Mr.  Pecksniff  is  an  exaggeration,  and  that  no 
such  character  ever  existed. 

It  is  worth  remembering,  too,  that  it  is  impossible  to 
exaggerate  the  description  of  the  effects  of  the  evils  Dick- 
I  ens  attacked.  Coercion  in  any  form  blights  and  dwarfs 
the  true  selfhood  of  the  child.  The  coercion  of  Mrs. 
Crisparkle's  placid  but  unbending  will,  which  she  kept 
rigid  from  a  deep  conviction  of  Christian  duty,  is  as 
•clearly  at  variance  with  the  elemental  laws  of  individual 
freedom  and  growth  by  self-activity  as  the  more  dreadful 
forms  of  coercion  practised  by  Squeers,  Creakle,  Bumble, 
or  Murdstone. 

Doctor  Blimber's  cramming  is  not  exaggerated.  It 
would  be  quite  possible  to  find  in  England  or  the  United 


THE   PLACE   OF   DICKENS  AMONG  EDUCATORS.     13 

States  or  Canada  not  only  private  but  public  institutions 
in  which  similar  processes  of  illogical  cramming  are  still 
practised.  Words  are  still  given  before  the  thought,  and 
as  a  substitute  for  thought.  "  Alathematical  gooseber- 
ries "  are  yet  produced  "  from  mere  sprouts  of  bushes,'' 
the  "  words  and  grammar "  of  literature  are  still  given 
instead  of  the  life  and  glory  of  the  author's  revelations, 
children  yet  are  "  made  to  bear  to  pattern  somehow  or 
other." 

Whether  Dickens  exaggerated  or  not  in  regard  to 
other  spheres  of  work  or  of  existence  without  work,  he 
certainly  did  not  exaggerate  in  regard  to  ^hool  condi- 
tions. He  studied  them  faithfully,  and  described  them 
truly.  He  saw  wrongs  more  clearly  than  other  men,  and 
he  made  them  stand  out  in  their  natural  hideousness. 

It  is  frequently  asserted  that  Dickens  portrayed  wrong- 
training  more  than  right,  that  he  was  destructive  rather 
than  constructive.  In  a  sense,  this  is  correct.  His  mis- 
sion was  to  startle  men,  so  that  they  would  be  made  con-' 
scious  of  the  awful  crimes  that  were  being  committed 
by  teachers  and  parents  in  the  name  of  duty,  as  conceived 
by  the  highest  Christian  civilization  of  his  time.  He- 
knew  that  a  basis  of  strong  feeling  must  be  aroused 
against  a  wrong  before  it  can  be  overthrown  and  right 
practices  substituted  for  it.  The  only  sure  foundation 
for  any  reform  is  an  energetic  feeling  of  dislike  for  pres- 
ent conditions.  The  chief  work  of  Dickens  was  to  lay 
bare  the  injustice,  the  meanness,  and  the  blighting  coer- 
cion practised  on  helpless  children  not  only  by  "  igno- 
rant, sordid,  brutal  men  called  schoolmasters,"  but  in  a 
less  degree  by  the  best  teachers  and  parents  of  his  time. 
His  was  a  noble  work,  and  it  was  well  done. 

The  grandest  movement  of  the  nineteenth  century  was 
the  development  of  a  profound  reverence  for  the  child, 
so  deep  and  wide  that  his  rights  are  beginning  to  be 
clearly  recognised  by  individuals  and  by  national  laws, 
and  that  intelligent  adulthood  is  studying  him  as  the  cen- 
tral element  of  power  in  the  representation  of  God  in  the 
accomplishment  of  the  progressive  evolution  of  the  race. 
Christ  put  "  the  child  in  the  midst  of  his  disciples  " ;  men 


14  DICKENS  AS  AN  EDUCATOR. 

are  learning  to  follow  his  example,  and  study  the  child 
as  the  surest  way  to  secure  industrial,  social,  and  moral 
reforms.  Froebel  and  Dickens  were  the  men  who  re- 
vealed the  child.  They  were  the  true  apostles  of  child- 
hood. It  must  not  be  supposed  that  Dickens  was  not 
conscious  of  the  positive  good  while  describing  the  evils. 
The  expressions  "  child  queller,"  "  gospel  of  monotony," 
"  bear  to  pattern,"  "  taught  as  parrots  are,"  etc.,  and  the 
name  "  McChoakumchild,"  reveal  the  possession  of  the 
highest  consciousness  of  child  freedom,  of  individuality, 
and  of  child  reverence  jet  given  to  humanity.  So  in  all 
his  wonderful  pictures  it  would  have  been  impossible  for 
him  to  have  so  vividly  described  the  wrong  if  he  had  not 
clearly  understood  the  right.  He  had  perfect  sympathy 
with  childhood,  he  was  a  great  student  of  the  child  and 
of  the  existing  methods  of  training  and  educating  him, 
and  his  insights  and  judgment  were  so  clear  and  true  that, 
as  Ruskin  says,  "  in  the  last  analysis  he  was  always  right." 
If  he  had  never  written  anything  but  his  article  on 
the  kindergarten,  published  July,  1855,  he  would  have 
proved  himself  to  be  an  educational  philosopher. 


CHAPTER  n. 

INFANT  GARDENS. 

Dickens  wrote  the  following  article  for  Household 
Words  in  1855.  It  reveals  a  surprising  mastery  of  the 
vital  principles  of  "  the  new  education."  He  wrote  the 
article  to  direct  attention  to  the  work  of  the  Baroness 
Von  Billow,  who  had  come  to  England  to  introduce  the 
kindergarten  system.  Dickens's  works  show  that  he  had 
long  been  a  close  student  of  Eroebel's  philosophy.  The 
article  must  always  take  a  front  rank  as  a  strikingly 
clear,  comprehensive,  and  sympathetic  exposition  of  the 
principles  and  processes  of  the  kindergarten.  Kinder- 
gartens were  called  "  infant  gardens  "'  when  first  intro- 
duced into  England. 

Seventy  or  eighty  years  ago  there  was  a  son  born  to  the 
Pastor  Froebel,  who  exercised  his  calling  in  the  village  of 
Ober^veissbach,  in  the  principality  of  Schwartzburg-Rudol- 
stadt.  The  son,  who  was  called  Frederick,  proved  to  be  a 
child  of  unusually  quick  sensibilities,  keenly  alive  to  all 
impressions,  hurt  by  discords  of  all  kinds;  by  quarrelling 
of  men,  women,  and  children,  by  ill-assorted  colours,  inhar- 
monious sounds.  He  was,  to  a  morbid  extent,  capable  of 
receiving  delight  from  the  beauties  of  Nature,  and,  as  a 
very  little  boy,  would  spend  much  of  his  time  in  studying 
and  enjoying,  for  their  own  sake,  the  lines  and  angles  in 
the  Gothic  architecture  of  his  father's  church.  Who  does 
not  know  what  must  be  the  central  point  of  all  the  happi- 
ness of  such  a  child?  The  voice  of  its  mother  is  the  sweet- 
est of  sweet  sounds,  the  face  of  its  mother  is  the  fairest  of 
fair  sights,  the  loving  touch  of  her  lip  is  the  symbol  to  it  of 
all  pleasures  of  the  sense  and  of  the  soul.  Against  the 
thousand  shocks  and  terrors  that  are  ready  to  afflict  a 
child  too  exquisitely  sensitive,  the  mother  is  the  sole  pro- 

15 


16  DICKENS  AS  AN  EDUCATOR. 

tectress,  and  her  help  is  all-sufficient.  Frederick  Froebel 
lost  his  mother  in  the  first  years  of  his  childhood,  and  his 
youth  was  tortured  with  incessant  <iraving  for  a  sympathy 
that  was  not  to  be  found. 

The  Pastor  Froebel  was  too  busy  to  attend  to  all  the 
little  fancies  of  his  son.  It  was  his  good  practice  to  be  the 
peaceful  arbiter  of  the  disputes  occurring  in  the  village, 
and,  as  he  took  his  boy  with  him  when  he  went  out,  he 
made  the  child  familiar  with  all  the  quarrels  of  the  parish. 
Thus  were  suggested,  week  after  week,  comparisons  be- 
tween the  harmony  of  Nature  and  the  spite  and  scandal 
current  among  men.  A  dreamy,  fervent  love  of  God,  a  fan- 
ciful boy's  wish  that  he  could  make  men  quiet  and  ait'ec- 
tionate,  took  strong  possession  of  young  Frederick,  and 
grew  with  his  advancing  years.  He  studied  a  good  deal. 
Following  out  his  love  of  Nature,  he  sought  to  become 
acquainted  with  the  sciences  by  which  her  ways  and  as- 
pects are  explained;  his  contemplation  of  the  architecture 
of  the  village  church  ripened  into  a  thorough  taste  for 
mathematics,  and  he  enjoyed  agricultural  life  practically, 
as  a  worker  on  his  father's  land.  At  last  he  went  to  Pes- 
talozzi's  school  in  Switzerland. 

Then  followed  troublous  times,  and  patriotic  war  in 
Germany,  where  even  poets  fought  against  the  enemy  with 
lyre  and  sword.  The  quick  instincts,  and  high,  generous 
impulses  of  Frederick  Froebel  were  engaged  at  once,  and 
he  went  out  to  battle  on  behalf  of  Fatherland  in  the  ranks 
of  the  boldest,  for  he  was  one  of  Liitzow's  regiment — a 
troop  of  riders  that  earned  by  its  daring  an  immortal 
name.  Their  fame  has  even  penetrated  to  our  English 
concert  rooms,  where  many  a  fair  English  maiden  has 
been  made  familiar  with  the  dare-devil  patriots  of  which  it 
was  composed  by  the  refrain  of  the  German  song  in  hon- 
our of  their  prowess — "  Das  ist  Liitzow's  fliegende,  Mdlde 
Jagd."  Having  performed  his  duty  to  his  country  in  the 
ranks  of  its  defenders,  Froebel  fell  back  upon  his  love  of 
nature  and  his  study  of  triangles,  squares,  and  cubes.  He 
had  made  interest  that  placed  him  in  a  position  which,  in 
many  respects,  curiouslj'^  satisfied  his  tastes — that  of  In- 
spector to  the  Mineralogical  Museum  in  Berlin.  The  post 
was  lucrative,  its  duties  were  agreeable  to  him,  but  the 
object  of  his  life's  desire  was  yet  to  be  attained. 

For  the  unsatisfied  cravings  of  his  childhood  had  borne 
fruit  within  him.     He  remembered  the  quick  feelings  and 


INFANT   GARDENS.  17 

perceptions,  the  incessant  nimbleness  of  mind  proper  to 
his  first  years,  and  how  he  had  been  hemmed  in  and 
cramped  for  want  of  right  encouragement  and  sympathy. 
He  remembered,  too,  the  ill-conditioned  people  whose  dis- 
putes had  been  made  part  of  his  experience,  the  dogged 
children,  cruel  fathers,  sullen  husbands,  angrj-  wives,  quar- 
relsome neighbours;  and  surely  he  did  not  err  when  he 
connected  the  two  memories  together.  How  many  men 
and  women  go  about  pale-skinned  and  weak  of  limb,  be- 
cause their  phj'sical  health  during  infancy  and  childhood 
was  not  established  by  judicious  management.  It  is  just 
so,  thought  Froebel,  with  our  minds.  There  would  be 
fewer  sullen,  quarrelsome,  dull-witted  men  or  women  if 
there  were  fewer  children  starved  or .  fed  improperly  in 
heart  and  brain.  To  improve  society — to  make  men  and 
women  better — it  is  requisite  to  begin  quite  at  the  begin- 
ning, and  to  secure  for  them  a  wholesome  education  during 
Infancy  and  childhood.  Strongly  possessed  with  this  idea, 
and  feeling  that  the  usual  methods  of  education,  by  re- 
straint and  penalty,  aim  at  the  accomplishment  of  far  too 
little,  and  by  checking  natural  development  even  do  posi- 
tive mischief,  Froebel  determined  upon  the  devotion  of  his 
entire  energy,  throughout  his  life,  to  a  strong  effort  for 
the  establishment  of  schools  that  should  do  justice  and 
honour  to  the  nature  of  a  child.  He  resigned  his  appoint- 
ment at  Berlin,  and  threw  himself,  with  only  the  resources 
of  a  fixed  will,  a  full  mind,  and  a  right  purpose,  on  the 
chances  of  the  future. 

At  Keilhau.  a  village  of  Thuringia.  he  took  a  peasant's 
cottage,  in  which  he  proposed  to  establish  his  first  school — 
a  village  boys'  school.  It  was  necessary  to  enlarge  the  cot- 
tage; and,  while  that  was  being  done,  Froebel  lived  on 
potatoes,  bread,  and  water.  So  scanty  was  his  stock  of 
capital  on  which  his  enterprise  was  started,  that,  in  order 
honestly  to  pay  his  workmen,  he  was  forced  to  carry  his 
principle  of  self-denial  to  the  utmost.  He  bought  each 
week  two  large  rye  loaves,  and  marked  on  them  with 
chalk  each  day's  allowance.  Perhaps  he  is  the  only  man 
in  the  world  who  ever,  in  so  literal  a  way,  chalked  out  for 
himself  a  scheme  of  diet. 

After  labouring  for  many  years  among  the  boys  at 
Keilhau,  Froebel — married  to  a  wife  who  shared  his  zeal, 
and  made  it  her  labour  to  help  to  the  utmost  in  carrying 
out  the  idea  of  her  husband's  life — felt  that  there  was  more 


18  DICKENS  AS  AN   EDUCATOR. 

to  be  accomplished.  His  boys  came  to  him  with  many  a 
twist  in  mind  or  temper,  caught  by  wriggling  up  through 
the  bewilderments  of  a  neglected  infancy.  The  first 
sproutings  of  the  human  mind  need  thoughtful  culture; 
there  is  no  period  of  life,  indeed,  in  which  culture  is  so 
essential.  And  yet,  in  nine  out  of  ten  cases,  it  is  precisely 
while  the  little  blades  of  thought  and  buds  of  love  are  frail 
and  tender  that  no  heed  is  taken  to  maintain  the  soil  about 
them  wholesome,  and  the  air  about  them  free  from  blight. 
There  must  be  Infant  Gardens,  Froebel  said;  and  straight- 
way formed  his  plans,  and  set  to  work  for  their  accom- 
plishment. 

He  had  become  familiar  in  cottages  with  the  instincts 
of  mothers,  and  the  faculties  with  which  young  children 
are  endowed  by  Nature.  He  never  lost  his  own  childhood 
from  memory,  and  being  denied  the  blessing  of  an  infant 
of  his  own,  regarded  all  the  little  ones  with  equal  love. 
The  direction  of  his  boys'  school — now  flourishing  vigor- 
ously— he  committed  to  the  care  of  a  relation,  while  he  set 
out  upon  a  tour  through  parts  of  Germany  and  Switzer- 
land to  lecture  upon  infant  training  and  to  found  Infant 
Gardens  where  he  could.  He  founded  them  at  Hamburg, 
Leipzig,  Dresden,  and  elsewhere.  While  labouring  in  this 
way  he  was  alwaj^s  exercising  the  same  spirit  of  self- 
denial  that  had  marked  the  outset  of  his  educational 
career.  Whatever  he  could  earn  was  for  the  children,  to 
promote  their  cause.  He  would  not  spend  upon  himself 
the  money  that  would  help  in  the  accomplishment  of  his 
desire,  that  childhood  should  be  made  as  happy  as  God  in 
his  wisdom  had  designed  it  should  be,  and  that  full  play 
should  be  given  to  its  energies  and  powers.  ISIany  a 
night's  lodging  he  took,  while  on  his  travels,  in  the  open 
fields,  with  an  umbrella  for  his  bedroom  and  a  knapsack 
for  his  pillow. 

So  beautiful  a  self-devotion  to  a  noble  cause  won  recog- 
nition. One  of  the  best  friends  of  his  old  age  was  the 
Duchess  Ida  of  Weim.ar,  sister  to  Queen  Adelaide  of  Eng- 
land, and  his  death  took  place  on  the  21st  of  June,  three 
years  ago,  at  a  country  seat  of  the  Duke  of  ]SIeiningen.  lie 
died  at  the  age  of  seventy,  peaceablj^  upon  a  summer  day, 
delighting  in  the  beautiful  scenery  that  lay  outside  his 
window,  and  in  the  flowers  brought  by  friends  to  his  bed- 
side. Nature,  he  said,  bore  witness  to  the  promises  of 
revelation.     So  Froebel  passed  away. 


INFANT   GARDENS.  19 

And  Nature's  pleasant  robe  of  green, 
Humanity's  appointed  shroud,  enwraps 
His  monument  and  his  memory. 

Wise  and  good  people  have  been  endeavouring  of  late  to 
obtain  in  this  country  a  hearing  for  the  views  of  this  good 
teacher,  and  a  trial  for  his  system.  Only  fourteen  years 
have  elapsed  since  the  first  Infant  Garden  was  established, 
and  already  Infant  Gardens  have  been  introduced  into 
most  of  the  larger  towns  of  Germany.  Let  us  now  wel- 
come them  with  all  our  hearts  to  England. 

The  whole  principle  of  Froebel's  teaching  is  based  on  a 
perfect  love  for  children,  and  a  full  and  genial  recognition 
of  their  nature,  a  determination  that  their  hearts  shall 
not  be  starved  for  want  of  sympathy;  that  since  they  are 
by  Infinite  Wisdom  so  created  as  to  find  happiness  in  the 
active  exercise  and  development  of  all  their  faculties,  we, 
who  have  children  round  about  us,  shall  no  longer  repress 
their  energies,  tie  up  their  bodies,  shut  their  mouths,  and 
declare  that  they  worry  us  by  the  incessant  putting  of  the 
questions  which  the  Father  of  us  all  has  placed  in  their 
mouths,  so  that  the  teachable  one  forever  cries  to  those 
who  undertake  to  be  its  guide,  "  What  shall  I  do?  "  To  be 
ready  at  all  times  with  a  wise  answer  to  that  question, 
ought  to  be  the  ambition  of  every  one  upon  whom  a  child's 
nature  depends  for  the  means  of  healthy  growth.  The 
frolic  of  childhood  is  not  pure  exuberance  and  waste. 
"  There  is  often  a  high  meaning  in  childish  play,"  said 
Froebel.  Let  us  study  it,  and  act  upon  hints — or  more 
than  hints — that  Nature  gives.  They  fall  into  a  fatal  error 
who  despise  all  that  a  child  does  as  frivolous.  Nothing  is 
trifling  that  forms  part  of  a  child's  life. 

That  which  the  mother  awakens  and  fosters, 
When  she  joyously  sings  and  plays; 

That  which  her  love  so  tenderly  shelters. 
Bears  a  blessing  to  future  days. 

We  quote  Froebel  again,  in  these  lines,  and  we  quot^ 
others  in  which  he  bids  us 

Break  not  suddenly  the  dream 
The  blessed  dream  of  infancy; 
In  which  the  soul  unites  with  all 
In  earth,  or  heaven,  or  sea,  or  sky. 


^ 


20  DICKENS  AS   AN   EDUCATOR. 

But   enough   has   already   been   said   to   show  what   he 
would  have  done.     How  would  he  do  it? 

Of  course  it  must  be  borne  in  mind,  throughout  the 
following  sketch  of  Froebel's  scheme  of  infant  training, 
that  certain  qualities  of  mind  are  necessary  to  the  teacher. 
Let  nobody  suppose  that  any  scheme  of  education  can 
attain  its  end,  as  a  mere  scheme,  apart  from  the  qualifica- 
tions of  those  persons  by  whom  it  is  to  be  carried  out. 
Very  young  children  can  be  trained  successfully  by  no 
person  who  wants  hearty  liking  for  them,  and  who  can 
take  part  only  with  a  proud  sense  of  restraint  in  their 
chatter  and  their  play.  It  is  in  truth  no  condescension  to 
become  in  spirit  as  a  child  with  children,  and  nobody  is  lit 
,  to  teach  the  young  who  holds  a  different  opinion.  Unvary- 
ing cheerfulness  and  kindness,  the  refinement  that  belongs 
naturally  to  a  pure,  well-constituted  woman's  mind  are 
absolutely  necessary  to  the  management  of  one  of  Froe- 
bel's Infant  Gardens. 

Then,  again,  let  it  be  understood  that  Froebel  never 
wished  his  system  of  training  to  be  converted  into  mere 
routine  to  the  exclusion  of  all  that  spontaneous  action  in 
which  more  than  half  of  every  child's  education  must  con- 
sist. It  was  his  purpose  to  show  the  direction  in  which 
it  was  most  useful  to  proceed,  how  best  to  assist  the 
growth  of  the  mind  by  following  the  indications  Nature 
furnishes.  Nothing  was  farther  from  his  design,  in  doing 
that,  than  the  imposition  of  a  check  on  anj^  wholesome 
energies.  Blindman's  buff,  romps,  puzzles,  fairy  tales, 
I  everything  in  fact  that  exercises  soundly  any  set  of  the 
(child's  faculties,  must  be  admitted  as  a  part  of  Froebel's 
system.  The  cardinal  point  of  his  doctrine  is — take  care 
that  you  do  not  exercise  a  part  only  of  the  child's  mind  or 
body;  but  take  thorough  pains  to  see  that  you  encourage 
the  development  of  its  whole  nature.  If  pains — and  great 
pains — be  not  taken  to  see  that  this  is  done,  probably  it  is 
not  done.  The  Infant  Gardens  are  designed  to  help  in 
doing  it. 
/  The  mind  of  a  young  child  must  not  be  trained  at  the 

I  expense  of  its  body.  Every  muscle  ought,  if  possible,  to 
be  brought  daily  into  action;  and,  in  the  case  of  a  child 
suffered  to  obey  the  laws  of  Nature  by  free  tumbling  and 
romping,  that  is  done  in  the  best  manner  possible.  Every 
mother  knows  that  by  carrying  an  infant  always  on  the 
same   arm    its    growth    is    liable    to    be    perverted.     Every 


INFANT   GARDEXS.  21 

father  knows  the  child's  delight  at  being-  vig-orously  danced 
up  and  down,  and  much  of  this  delight  arises  from  the 
play  then  given  to  its  muscles.  As  the  child  grows,  the 
most  unaccustomed  positions  into  which  it  can  Le  safely 
twisted  are  those  from  which  it  will  receive  the  great- 
est pleasure.  That  is  because  play  is  thus  given  to 
the  muscles  in  a  form  they  do  not  often  get,  and 
Nature — always  watchful  on  the  child's  behalf — -cries, 
We^^vrill  have  some  more  of  that.  It  does  us  good.  ~As 
it  is  with  the  body,  so  it  is  with  the  mind,  and  Froebel's 
scheme  of  infant  education  is,  for  both,  a  system  of  gym- 
nastics. 

He  begins  with  the  newborn  infant,  and  demands  that, 
if  possible,  it  shall  not  be  taken  from  its  mother.  He  sets 
his  face  strongly  against  the  custom  of  committing  the 
child  during  the  tenderest  and  most  impressible  period  of 
its  whole  life  to  the  care  and  companionship  of  an  ig'norant 
nursemaid,  or  of  servants  who  have  not  the  mother's  in- 
stinct, or  the  knowledge  that  can  tell  them  hovr  to  behave 
in  its  presence.  Only  the  mother  should,  if  possible,  be  the 
child's  chief  companion  and  teacher  during  at  least  the 
first  three  years  of  its  life,  and  she  should  have  thoug-ht  it 
worth  while  to  prepare  herself  for  the  right  fulfilment  of 
her  duties.  [Instead  of  tambour  work,  or  Arabic,  or  any 
other  useless  thing  that  may  be  taught  at  girls'  schools, 
surely  it  ^vould  be  a  great  blessing  if  young  ladies  were  to 
spend  some  of  their  time  in  an  Infant  Garden,  that  might 
be  attached  to  every  academy.  Let  them  all  learn  from 
Froebel  what  are  the  requirements  of  a  child,  and  be  pre- 
pared for  the  wise  performance  of  what  is  after  all  to  be 
the  most  momentous  business  of  their  lives. ) 

The  carrying  out  of  this  hint  is  indeed  necessarj^  to  the 
complete  and  general  adoption  of  the  infant-garden  sys- 
tem. Froebel  desired  his  infants  to  be  taught  only  by 
women,  and  required  that  they  should  be  women  as  well 
educated  and  refined  as  possible,  preferring  amiable  un- 
married girls.  Thus  he  would  have  our  maidens  spending 
some  part  of  their  time  in  playing  with  little  ones,  learning 
to  understand  them,  teaching  them  to  understand;  our 
wives  he  would  have  busy  at  home,  making  good  use  of 
their  experience,  developing  carefully  and  thoughtfully 
the  minds  of  their  children,  sole  teachers  for  the  first  three 
years  of  their  life;  afterward,  either  helped  by  throwing 
them  among  other  children  in  an  Infant  Garden  for  two 
3 


22  DICKENS  AS  AN  EDUCATOR. 

or  three  hours  every  day,  or,  if  there  be  at  home  no  lack 
of  little  company,  having  Infant  Gardens  of  their  ovv^n. 

Believing  that  it  is  natural  to  address  infants  in  song, 
Froebel  encouraged  nursery  songs,  and  added  to  their 
number.  Those  contributed  by  him  to  the  common  stock 
vv^ere  of  course  contributed  for  the  sake  of  some  use  that  he 
had  for  each;  in  the  same  spirit — knowing  play  to  be 
essential  to  a  child — he  invented  games;  and  those  added 
by  him  to  the  common  stock  are  all  meant  to  be  used  for 
direct  teaching.  It  does  not  in  the  least  follow,  and  it  was 
not  the  case,  that  he  would  have  us  make  all  nursery 
rhymes  and  garden  sports  abstrusely  didactic.  He  meant 
no  more  than  to  put  his  own  teaching  into  songs  and 
games,  to  show  clearly  that  whatever  is  necessary  to  be 
said  or  done  to  a  young  child  may  be  said  or  done  merrily 
or  playfully;  and  although  he  was  essentially  a  school- 
master, he  had  no  faith  in  the  terrors  commonly  associated 
with  his  calling. 

Froebel's  nursery  songs  are  associated  almost  invari- 
ably with  bodily  activity  on  the  part  of  the  child.  He  is 
always,  as  soon  as  he  becomes  old  enough,  to  do  something 
while  the  song  is  going  on,  and  the  movements  assigned  to 
him  are  cunningly  contrived  so  that  not  even  a  joint  of  a 
little  finger  shall  be  left  unexercised.  If  he  be  none  the 
better,  he  is  none  the  worse  for  this.  The  child  is  indeed 
unlucky  that  depends  only  on  care  of  this  description  for 
the  full  play  of  its  body;  but  there  are  some  children  so 
unfortunate,  and  there  are  some  parents  who  will  be  use- 
fully reminded  by  those  songs,  of  the  necessity  of  procur- 
ing means  for  the  free  action  of  every  joint  and  limb. 
What  is  done  for  the  body  is  done  in  the  same  spirit  for  the 
mind,  and  ideas  are  formed,  not  by  song  only.  The  begin- 
ning of  a  most  ingenious  course  of  mental  training  by  a 
series  of  playthings  is  made  almost  from  the  very  first. 

A  box  containing  six  soft  balls,  differing  in  colour,  is 
given  to  the  child.  It  is  Froebel's  "  first  gift."  Long  be- 
fore it  can  speak  the  infant  can  hold  one  of  these  little 
balls  in  its  fingers,  become  familiar  with  its  spherical 
shape  and  its  colour.  It  stands  still,  it  springs,  it  rolls. 
As  the  child  grows,  he  can  roll  it  and  run  after  it,  watch 
it  with  sharp  eyes,  and  compare  the  colour  of  one  ball 
with  the  colour  of  another,  prick  up  his  ears  at  the  songs 
connected  with  his  various  games  with  it,  use  it  as  a  bond 
of  playfellowship  with  other  children,  practise  with  it  first 


INFANT   GARDENS.  2a 

efforts  at  self-denial,  and  so  forth.  One  ball  is  suspended 
by  a  string,  it  jumps — it  rolls — here — there — over — up; 
turns  left — turns  right — ding-dong — tip-tap — falls — spins; 
fifty  ideas  may  be  connected  with  it.  The  six  balls,  three 
of  the  primary  colours,  three  of  the  secondary,  may  be 
built  up  in  a  pyramid;  they  may  be  set  rolling,  and  used  in 
combination  in  a  great  many  ways  giving  sufficient  exer- 
cise to  the  young  wits  that  have  all  knowledge  and  expe- 
rience before  them. 

Froebel's  "  second  gift  "  is  a  small  box  containing"  a 
ball,  cube,  and  roller  (the  last  two  perforated),  with  a  stick 
and  string.  ^Yith  these  forms  of  the  cube,  sphere,  and 
cylinder,  there  is  a  great  deal  to  be  done  and  learned.  They 
can  be  played  with  at  first  according  to  the  child's  own  hu- 
mour: will  run,  jump,  represent  carts,  or  anything.  The 
ancient  Egyptians,  in  their  young  days  as  a  nation,  piled 
three  cubes  on  one  another  and  called  them  the  three 
Graces.  A  child  will,  in  the  same  way,  see  fishes  in  stones, 
and  be  content  to  put  a  cylinder  upon  a  cube,  and  say  that 
is  papa  on  horseback.  Of  this  element  of  ready  fancy  in 
all  childish  sport  Froebel  took  full  advantage.  The  ball, 
cube,  and  cylinder  may  be  spun,  swung,  rolled,  and  bal- 
anced in  so  many  ways  as  to  display  practically  all  their 
properties.  The  cube,  spun  upon  the  stick  piercing  it 
through  opposite  edges,  will  look  like  a  circle,  and  sa 
forth.  As  the  child  grows  older,  each  of  the  forms  may  be 
examined  definitely,  and  he  may  learn  from  observation 
to  describe  it.  The  ball  may  be  rolled  down  an  inclined 
plane  and  the  acceleration  of  its  speed  observed.  Most  of 
the  elementary  laws  of  mechanics  may  be  made  practically 
obvious  to  the  child's  understanding. 

The  "  third  gift  "  is  the  cube  divided  once  in  every 
direction.  By  the  time  a  child  gets  this  to  play  with  he  is 
three  years  old — of  age  ripe  for  admission  to  an  Infant 
Garden.  The  Infant  Garden  is  intended  for  the  help  of 
children  between  three  years  old  and  seven.  Instruction 
in  it — always  by  means  of  play — is  given  for  only  two  or 
three  hours  in  the  day;  such  instruction  sets  each  child,  if 
reasonably  helped  at  home,  in  the  right  train  of  education 
for  the  remainder  of  its  time. 

An  Infant  Garden  must  be  held  in  a  large  room  abound- 
ing in  clear  space  for  child's  play,  and  connected  with  a 
garden  into  which  the  children  may  adjourn  whenever 
weather  will  permit.     The  garden  is  meant  chieflj'  to  as- 


24:  DICKENS  AS  AN  EDUCATOR. 

sure,  more  perfectly,  the  association  of  wholesome  bodily 
exercise  with  mental  activity.  If  climate  but  permitted, 
Froebel  would  have  all  young  children  taught  entirely  in 
the  pure,  fresh  air,  while  frolicking  in  sunshine  among 
flowers.  By  his  system  he  aimed  at  securing  for  them 
bodily  as  well  as  mental  health,  and  he  held  it  to  be  un- 
natural that  they  should  be  cooped  up  in  close  rooms,  and 
glued  to  forms,  when  all  their  limbs  twitch  with  desire  for 
action,  and  there  is  a  warm  sunshine  out  of  doors.  The 
garden,  too,  should  be  their  own;  every  child  the  master 
or  mistress  of  a  plot  in  it,  sowing  seeds  and  watching  day 
by  day  the  growth  of  plants,  instructed  playfully  and  sim- 
ply in  the  meaning  of  what  is  observed.  When  weather 
forbids  use  of  the  garden,  there  is  the  great,  airy  room 
w^hich  should  contain  cupboards,  with  a  place  for  every 
child's  toys  and  implements;  so  that  a  habit  of  the  strict- 
est neatness  may  be  properly  maintained.  Up  to  the  age 
of  seven  there  is  to  be  no  book  work  and  no  ink  work;  but 
only  at  school  a  free  and  brisk,  but  systematic  strengthen- 
ing of  the  body,  of  the  senses,  of  the  intellect,  and  of  the 
affections,  managed  in  such  a  way  as  to  leave  the  child 
prompt  for  subsequent  instruction,  already  comprehending 
the  elements  of  a  good  deal  of  knowledge. 

We  must  endeavour  to  show  in  part  how  that  is  done. 
The  third  gift — the  cube  divided  once  in  every  direction — 
enables  the  child  to  begin  the  work  of  construction  in 
accordance  with  its  own  ideas,  and  insensibly  brings  the 
ideas  into  the  control  of  a  sense  of  harmony  and  fitness. 
The  cube  divided  into  eight  parts  will  manufacture  many 
things;  and,  while  the  child  is  at  work  helped  by  quiet 
suggestion  now  and  then,  the  teacher  talks  of  what  he  is 
about,  asks  many  questions,  answers  more,  mixes  up  little 
songs  and  stories  with  the  play.  Pillars,  ruined  castles, 
triumphal  arches,  city  gates,  bridges,  crosses,  towers,  all 
can  be  completed  to  the  perfect  satisfaction  of  a  child,  with 
the  eight  little  cubes.  They  are  all  so  many  texts  on 
which  useful  and  pleasant  talk  can  be  established.  Then 
they  are  capable  also  of  harmonious  arrangement  into  pat- 
terns, and  this  is  a  great  pleasure  to  the  child.  He  learns 
the  charm  of  symmetry,  exercises  taste  in  the  preference 
of  this  or  that  among  the  hundred  combinations  of  which 
his  eight  cubes  are  susceptible. 

Then  follows  the  "  fourth  gift,"  a  cube  divided  into 
eight  planes  cut   lengthways.     More   things   can  be   done 


INFANT   GARDENS.  25 

with  this  than  with  the  other.  Without  strain  on  the 
mind,  in  sheer  play,  mingled  with  songs,  nothing  is  wanted 
but  a  liberal  supply  of  little  cubes,  to  make  clear  to  the 
children  the  elements  of  arithmetic.  The  cubes  are  the 
things  numbered.  Addition  is  done  with  them;  they  are 
subtracted  from  each  other;  they  are  multiplied;  they  are 
divided.  Besides  these  four  elementary  rules  they  cause 
children  to  be  thoroughly  at  home  in  the  principle  of  frac- 
tions, to  multiply  and  divide  fractions — as  real  things;  all 
in  good  time  it  will  become  easy  enough  to  let  written  fig- 
ures represent  them — to  go  through  the  rule  of  three, 
square  root,  and  cube  root.  As  a  child  has  instilled  into 
him  the  principles  of  arithmetic,  so  he  acquires  insensibly 
the  groundwork  of  geometry,  the  sister  science. 

Froebel's  "  fifth  gift  "  is  an  extension  of  the  third,  a 
cube  divided  into  twenty-seven  equal  cubes,  and  three  of 
these  further  divided  into  halves,  three  into  quarters.  This 
brings  with  it  the  teaching  of  a  great  deal  of  geometry, 
much  help  to  the  lessons  in  number,  magnificent  acces- 
sions to  the  power  of  the  little  architect,  who  is  provided, 
now,  with  pointed  roofs  and  other  glories,  and  the  means 
of  producing  an  almost  infinite  variety  of  symmetrical  pat- 
terns, both  more  complex  and  more  beautiful  than  hereto- 
fore. 

The  "  sixth  gift  "  is  a  cube  so  divided  as  to  extend  still 
farther  the  child's  power  of  combining  and  discussing  it. 
When  its  resources  are  exhausted  and  combined  with  those 
of  the  "  seventh  gift  "  (a  box  containing  every  form  sup- 
plied in  the  preceding  series),  the  little  pupil — seven  years 
old — has  had  his  inventive  and  artistic  powers  exercised,  u  i 
and  his  mind  stored  with  facts  that  have  been  absolutely  ''  ' 
comprehended.  He  has  acquired  also  a  sense  of  pleasure 
in  the  occupation  of  his  mind. 

But  he  has  not  been  trained  in  this  way  only.  We  leave 
out  of  account  the  bodily  exercise  connected  with  the 
entire  round  of  occupation,  and  speak  only  of  the  mental 
discipline.  There  are  some  other  "  gifts  "  that  are  brought 
into  service  as  the  child  becomes  able  to  use  them.  One  is 
a  box  containing  pieces  of  wood,  or  pasteboard,  cut  into 
sundry  forms.  With  these  the  letters  of  the  alphabet  can 
be  constructed;  and.  after  letters,  words,  in  such  a  way 
as  to  create  out  of  the  game  a  series  of  pleasant  spelling 
lessons.  The  letters  are  arranged  upon  a  slate  ruled  into 
little   squares,  by  which  the  eye  is  guided  in   preserving 


26  DICKENS  AS  AN  EDUCATOR. 

regularity.  Then  follows  the  gift  of  a  bundle  of  small 
sticks,  which  represent  so  many  straight  lines;  and,  by 
laying  them  upon  his  slate,  the  child  can  make  letters,  pat- 
terns, pictures;  drawing,  in  fact,  with  lines  that  have  not 
to  be  made  with  pen  or  pencil,  but  are  provided  ready 
made  and  laid  down  with  the  fingers.  This  kind  of  Stick- 
work  having  been  brought  to  perfection,  there  is  a  capital 
extension  of  the  idea  with  what  is  called  Pea-work.  By 
the  help  of  peas  softened  in  water,  sticks  may  be  joined  to- 
gether, letters,  skeletons  of  cubes,  crosses,  prisms  may  be 
built;  houses,  towers,  churches  may  be  constructed,  hav- 
ing due  breadth  as  well  as  length  and  height,  strong 
enough  to  be  carried  about  or  kept  as  specimens  of  ingenu- 
ity. Then  follows  a  gift  of  flat  sticks,  to  be  used  in  plait- 
ing. After  that  there  is  a  world  of  ingenuity  to  be  ex- 
pended on  the  plaiting,  folding,  cutting,  and  pricking  of 
plain  or  coloured  paper.  Children  five  years  old,  trained  in 
the  Infant  Garden,  will  delight  in  plaiting  slips  of  paper 
variously  coloured  into  patterns  of  their  own  invention, 
and  will  work  with  a  sense  of  symmetry  so  much  refined 
by  training  as  to  produce  patterns  of  exceeding  beauty. 
By  cutting  paper,  too,  patterns  are  produced  in  the  Infant 
Garden  that  would  often,  though  the  work  of  very  little 
hands,  be  received  in  schools  of  design  with  acclamation. 
Then  there  are  games  by  which  the  first  truths  of  astron- 
omy, and  other  laws  of  Nature,  are  made  as  familiar  as 
they  are  interesting.  For  our  own  parts,  we  have  been 
perfectly  amazed  at  the  work  we  have  seen  done  by  chil- 
dren of  six  or  seven — bright,  merry  creatures,  who  have 
all  the  spirit  of  their  childhood  active  in  them,  repressed 
by  no  parent's  selfish  love  of  ease  and  silence,  cowed  by  no 
dull-witted  teacher  of  the  ABC  and  the  pothooks. 

Froebel  discourages  the  cramping  of  an  infant's  hand 
upon  a  pen,  but  his  slate  ruled  into  little  squares,  or  paper 
prepared  in  the  same  way,  is  used  by  him  for  easy  training 
in  the  elements  of  drawing.  Modelling  in  wet  clay  is  one 
of  the  most  important  occupations  of  the  children  who 
have  reached  about  the  sixth  year,  and  is  used  as  much  as 
possible,  not  merely  to  encourage  imitation,  but  to  give 
some  play  to  the  creative  power.  Finally,  there  is  the  best 
possible  use  made  of  the  paint-box,  and  children  engaged 
upon  the  colouring  of  pictures  and  the  arrangement  of 
nosegays  are  further  taught  to  enjoy,  not  merely  what  is 
bright,  but  also  what  is  harmonious  and  beautiful. 


INFANT   GARDENS.  27 

We  have  not  left  ourselves  as  much  space  as  is  requisite 
to  show  ho%v  truly  all  such  labour  becomes  play  to  the 
child.  Fourteen  years'  evidence  suffices  for  a  demonstra- 
tion of  the  admirable  working*  of  a  system  of  this  kind;  but 
as  we  think  there  are  some  parents  who  may  be  willing-  to 
inquire  a  little  further  into  the  subject  here  commended 
earnestly  to  their  attention,  v.e  will  end  by  a  citation  of 
the  source  from  Avhich  we  have  ourselves  derived  what  in- 
formation we  possess. 

At  the  educational  exhibition  in  St.  Martin's  Hall  last 
year,  there  was  a  large  display  of  the  material  used  and 
results  produced  in  Infant  Gardens  which  attracted  much 
attention.  The  Baroness  von  !Marenholtz,  enthusiastic  in 
her  advocacy  of  the  children's  cause,  came  then  to  Eng"- 
land,  and  did  very  much  to  procure  the  establishment  in 
this  country  of  some  experimental  Infant  Gardens.  By 
her,  several  months  ago — and  at  about  the  same  time  by  M. 
and  ^ladame  lionge  who  had  already  established  the  first 
English  Infant  Garden — our  attention  was  invited  to  the 
subject.  We  were  also  made  acquainted  with  ^I.  Hoffman, 
one  of  Froebel's  pupils,  who  explained  the  system  theoreti- 
cally at  the  Polytechnic  Institution.  When  in  this  coun- 
try, the  Baroness  von  ^Nlarenholtz  published  a  book  called 
Woman's  Educational  Mission,  being  an  explanation  of 
Frederick  Froebel's  System  of  Infant  Gardens.  We  have 
made  use  of  the  book  in  the  preceding  notice,  but  it  ap- 
peared without  the  necessary  illustrations,  and  is  therefore 
a  less  perfect  guide  to  the  subject  than  a  ^vork  published 
more  recently  by  M.  and  Madame  Eonge:  A  Practical 
Guide  to  the  English  Kindergarten.  This  last  book  we  ex- 
hort everybody  to  consult  who  is  desirous  of  a  closer  in- 
sight into  Froebel's  system  than  we  have  been  able  here 
to  give.  It  not  only  explains  what  the  system  is,  but,  by 
help  of  an  unstinted  supply  of  little  sketches,  enables 
any  one  at  once  to  study  it  at  home  and  bring  it  into 
active  operation.  It  suggests  conversations,  games;  gives 
many  of  Froebel's  songs,  and  even  furnishes  the  music 
(which  usually  consists  of  popular  tunes — Mary  Blane, 
Rousseau's  Dream,  etc.)  to  ^vhich  they  ma\'  be  sung. 
Furthermore,  it  is  well  to  say  that  any  one  interested  in 
this  subject,  whom  time  and  space  do  not  forbid,  may 
see  an  Infant  Garden  in  full  work  by  calling,  on  a  Tues- 
day morning  between  the  hours  of  ten  and  one,  on  M.  and 
Madame  Ronge,  at  number  32  Tavistock  Place,  Tavistock 


28  DICKENS  AS  AN  EDUCATOR. 

Square.  That  day  these  earliest  and  heartiest  of  our 
established  infant  g-ardeners  have  set  apart,  for  the  help 
of  a  good  cause,  to  interruptions  and  investigations  from 
the  world  v^dthout,  trusting,  of  course,  we  suppose,  that  no 
one  will  disturb  them  for  the  satisfaction  of  mere  idle 
<;uriosity. 


CHAPTEE  ni. 

THE  OVERTHROW  OF  COERCION. 

Dickens,  in  the  preface  to  iSTicholas  Nickleby,  states 
that,  as  Pickwick  Papers  had  given  him  an  audience,  he 
determined  to  carry  out  a  long-cherished  plan  and  write 
for  the  purpose  of  driving  out  of  existence  a  class  of  bad 
private  schools,  of  which  certain  schools  in  Yorkshire 
were  the  worst  types.  He  drew  a  picture  of  low  cun- 
ning, avarice,  ignorance,  imposture,  and  brutality  in 
Squeers  that  astounded  his  audience,  and  led  to  the  clos- 
ing of  most  of  the  Yorkshire  private  schools  and  to  the 
overthrow  of  tyranny  in  schools  throughout  the  civilized 
world.  Tyranny  and  corporal  punishment  still  exist,  but 
not  in  the  best  schools.  Not  one  child  weeps  now  on 
account  of  corporal  punishment  for  every  hundred  who 
wailed  bitterly  for  the  same  reason  when  Froebel  and 
Dickens  began  their  loving  work.  Year  by  year  the  good 
work  goes  on.  Men  are  learning  the  better  ways  of  guid- 
ing and  governing  childhood.  We  can  not  yet  say  when 
men  and  women  in  the  homes  and  schools  everywhere 
shall  understand  the  child  and  their  own  powers  so  thor- 
oughly that  there  shall  be  no  more  corporal  punishment 
inflicted,  but  we  do  know  that  the  abatement  of  the  ter- 
rible brutality  began  with  the  revelations  of  Froebel  and 
Dickens.  Froebel  taught  the  new  philosophy,  Dickens 
sent  it  quivering  through  the  hearts  and  consciences  of 
mankind. 

Members  of  the  highest  classes  in  England  have  been 
imprisoned  near  the  close  of  the  nineteenth  century  for 
improper  methods  of  punishing  children  that  would  have 
excited  no  comment  when  Dickens  described  Squeers  a 
little  more  than  half  a  century  earlier.     In  the  report  to 

29 


30  DICKENS  AS  AN  EDUCATOR. 

the  British  Government,  at  the  close  of  his  remarkable 
half-century  of  honourable  and  very  able  educational 
work,  Sir  Joshua  Fitch  said :  "  In  watching  the  gradual 
development  of  the  training  colleges  for  women  from 
year  to  year,  nothing  is  more  striking  than  the  increased 
attention  which  is  being  paid  in  those  institutions  to  the 
true  principles  of  infant  teaching  and  discipline.  The 
circular  which  has  recently  been  issued  by  your  lordships, 
and  which  is  designed  to  enforce  and  explain  these 
principles,  would,  if  put  forth  a  few  years  ago,  have 
fallen  on  unprepared  soil,  and  would  indeed  have  seemed 
to  many  teachers  both  in  and  out  of  training  colleges  to 
be  scarcely  intelligible.  Now  its  counsels  will  be  wel- 
comed with  sympathy  and  full  appreciation." 

Dickens  describes  Squeers  as  a  man  "  vvliose  appear- 
ance was  not  prepossessing." 

He  had  but  one  eye,  and  the  popular  prejudice  runs  in 
favour  of  two.  The  eye  he  had  was  unquestionably  useful, 
but  decidedly  not  ornamental:  being  of  a  greenish  gray, 
and  in  shape  resembling  the  fanlight  of  a  street  door.  The 
blank  side  of  his  face  was  much  wrinkled  and  puckered  up, 
which  gave  him  a  very  sinister  appearance,  especially  when 
he  smiled,  at  which  times  his  expression  bordered  closely 
on  the  villainous.  His  hair  was  very  flat  and  shinj?^,  save 
at  the  ends,  where  it  was  brushed  stiffly  up  from  a  low 
protruding  forehead,  which  assorted  well  with  his  harsh 
voice  aiid  coarse  manner. 

He  then  proceeds  to  reveal  the  character  of  Squeers  by  a 
series  of  incidents : 

Mr.  Squeers  was  standing  in  a  box  by  one  of  the  coffee- 
room  fireplaces.  In  a  corner  of  the  seat  was  a  very  small 
deal  trunk,  tied  round  with  a  scanty  piece  of  cord;  and  on 
the  trunk  was  perohed — his  lace-up  half-boots  and  cordu- 
roy trousers  dangling  in  the  air — a  diminutive  boy,  with 
his  shoulders  drawn  up  to  his  ears,  and  his  hands  planted 
on  his  knees,  who  glanced  timidly  at  the  schoolmaster, 
from  time  to  time,  with  evident  dread  and  apprehension. 

"  Half-past  three,"  muttered  Mr.  Squeers,  turning  from 
the  window,  and  looking  sulkily  at  the  coffee-room  clock. 
*'  There  will  be  nobody  here  to-day." 


THE  OVERTHROW  OF   COERCION.  31 

Much  vexed  by  this  reflection,  Mr.  Squeers  looked  at 
the  little  boy  to  see  whether  he  was  doing  anything"  he 
could  beat  him  for.  As  he  happened  not  to  be  doing  any- 
thing" at  all,  he  merely  boxed  his  ears,  and  told  him  not  to 
do  it  again. 

"  At  midsummer,"  muttered  Mr.  Squeers,  resuming  his 
complaint,  "  I  took  down  ten  boys;  ten  tw^entys  is  two 
hundred  pound.  I  go  back  at  eight  o'clock  to-morrow 
morning,  and  have  got  only  three — three  oughts  is  an 
ought — three  twos  is  six — sixty  pound.  What's  come  of  all 
the  boys?  what's  parents  got  in  their  heads?  what  does 
it  all  mean?  " 

Here  the  little  boy  on  the  top  of  the  trunk  gave  a  vio- 
lent sneeze. 

"Halloa,  sir!"  growled  the  schoolmaster,  turning 
round.     "  What's  that,  sir?  " 

"  Nothing,  please,  sir,"  said  the  little  boy. 

"  Nothing,  sir?  "  exclaimed  Mr.  Squeers. 

"  Please,  sir,  I  sneezed,"  rejoined  the  boy,  trembling  till 
the  little  trunk  shook  under  him. 

"  Oh!  sneezed,  did  you?  "  retorted  Mr.  Squeers.  "  Then 
what  did  you  say  '  nothing  '  for,  sir?  " 

In  default  of  a  better  answer  to  this  question,  the  little 
boy  screwed  a  couple  of  knuckles  into  each  of  his  eyes  and 
began  to  cry,  wherefore  Mr.  Squeers  knocked  him  off  the 
trunk  with  a  blow  on  one  side  of  his  face,  and  knocked  him 
on  again  with  a  blow  on  the  other. 

"  Wait  till  I  get  you  down  into  Yorkshire,  my  young 
gentleman."  said  Mr.  Squeers,  "  and  then  I'll  give  you  the 
rest.     Will  you  hold  that  noise,  sir?  " 

"  Ye — ye — yes,"  sobbed  the  little  boy,  rubbing  his  face 
very  hard  with  the  Beggar's  Petition  in  printed  calico. 

"  Then  do  so  at  once,  sir,"  said  Squeers.  "  Do  you 
hear?  " 

The  waiter  at  this  juncture  announced  a  gentleman 
who  wished  to  interview  Mr.  Squeers,  and  the  schoolmas- 
ter, in  an  undertone,  said  to  the  poor  boy:  "Put  your 
handkerchief  in  your  pocket,  you  little  scoundrel,  or  I'll 
murder  you  when  the  gentleman  goes." 

Affecting  not  to  see  the  gentleman  when  he  entered, 
Mr.  Squeers  feigned  to  be  mending  a  pen  and  trying  to 
comfort  the  boy  he  had  so  grossly  abused. 


32  DICKENS  AS  AN  EDUCATOR. 

"  My  dear  child,"  said  Squeers,  "  all  people  have  their 
trials.  This  early  trial  of  yours,  that  is  fit  to  make  your 
little  heart  burst  and  your  very  eyes  come  out  of  your 
head  with  crying,  what  is  it?  Nothing  —  less  than 
nothing.  You  are  leaving  your  friends,  but  you  will 
have  a  father  in  me,  my  dear,  and  a  mother  in  Mrs. 
Squeers." 

Our  indignation  is  still  further  aroused  when  we  hear 
the  conversation  between  Mr.  Squeers  and  his  visitor, 
who  is  named  Snawley,  and  who  was  "  a  sleek,  flat-nosed 
man,  bearing  in  his  countenance  an  expression  of  much 
mortification  and  sanctity." 

He  had  brought  with  him  two  little  boys,  whose  step- 
father he  was.  Their  mother  had  a  little  money  in  her 
own  right  and  he  was  afraid  she  might  squander  it  on 
her  boys,  so  he  wished  to  dispose  of  them.  Our  blood 
runs  cold  as  we  hear  the  two  scoundrels  plotting  against 
the  unfortunate  boys.  They  are  to  be  kept  by  Squeers 
till  grown  up.  No  questions  are  to  be  asked  "  so  long 
as  the  payments  are  regular."  "  They  are  to  be  supplied 
with  razors  when  grown  up,  and  never  allowed  home 
for  holidays,  and  not  permitted  to  write  home,  except  a 
circular  at  Christmas  to  say  they  never  were  so  happy 
and  hope  they  may  never  be  sent  for,  and  no  questions 
are  to  be  asked  in  case  anything  happens  to  them." 

We  learn  the  unutterable  selfishness  of  Squeers  as  he 
sits  eating  a  sumptuous  breakfast,  while  the  five  wretched 
and  hungry  little  boys,  who  are  to  accompany  him  to 
Yorkshire  to  Dotheboys  Hall,  look  at  him.  He  had  or- 
dered bread  and  butter  for  three,  which  he  cut  into  five 
portions,  and  "  two-penn'orth  of  milk  "  for  the  five  boys. 
While  waiting  for  the  bread  to  come  he  said,  as  he  took 
a  large  mouthful  of  beef  and  toast,  "  Conquer  your  pas- 
sions, boys,  and  don't  be  eager  after  vittles.  Subdue 
your  appetites,  my  dears,  and  you've  conquered  human 
natur." 

Nicholas  Nickleby  had  been  engaged  to  teach  under 
Squeers  in  Dotheboys  Hall.  He  was  shocked  at  many 
things  he  heard  and  saw  the  night  he  arrived  in  York- 
shire. 


THE   OVERTHROW   OF   COERCION.  33 

But  the  school  itself  and  the  appearance  of  the 
wretched  pupils  completed  his  discomfiture. 

The  pupils — the  young  noblemen  I  How  the  last  faint 
traces  of  hope,  the  remotest  glimmering  of  any  good  to 
be  derived  from  his  efforts  in  this  den,  faded  from  the 
mind  of  Nicholas  as  he  looked  in  dismay  around!  Pale 
and  haggard  faces,  lank  and  bony  figures,  children  with 
the  countenances  of  old  men,  deformities  with  irons  upon 
their  limbs,  boys  of  stunted  growth,  and  others  whose  long 
meagre  legs  would  hardly  bear  their  stooping  bodies,  all 
crowded  on  the  view  together;  there  were  the  bleared  eye, 
the  harelip,  the  crooked  foot,  and  every  ugliness  or  dis- 
tortion that  told  of  unnatural  aversion  conceived  by 
parents  for  their  offspring,  or  of  young  lives  which,  from 
the  earliest  dawn  of  infancy,  had  been  one  horrible  endur- 
ance of  cruelty  and  neglect.  There  were  little  faces  which 
should  have  been  handsome,  darkened  with  the  scowl  of 
sullen,  dogged  suffering;  there  was  childhood  with  the 
light  of  its  eye  quenched,  its  beauty  gone,  and  its  helpless- 
ness alone  remaining;  there  were  vicious-faced  boys,  with 
leaden  eyes,  like  malefactors  in  a  jail;  and  there  were 
young  creatures  on  whom  the  sins  of  their  frail  parents 
had  descended,  weeping  even  for  the  mercenary  nurses 
they  had  known,  and  lonesome  even  in  their  loneliness. 
With  every  kindly  sympathy  and  affection  blasted  in  its 
birth,  with  every  young  and  healthy  feeling  flogged  and 
starved  down,  with  every  revengeful  passion  that  can  fester 
in  swollen  hearts,  eating  its  evil  way  to  their  core  in  si- 
lence, what  an  incipient  hell  was  breeding  here! 

It  was  Mr.  Squeers's  custom  on  the  first  afternoon 
after  his  return  from  London  to  call  the  school  together 
to  make  announcements,  and  read  letters  written  by  him- 
self, which  he  pretended  had  been  written  by  the  relatives 
of  the  boys.  Accordingly,  the  first  afternoon  after  the 
arrival  of  Xicholas,  Squeers  entered  the  schoolroom  "  with 
a  small  bundle  of  papers  in  his  hand,  and  Mrs.  S.  followed 
with  a  pair  of  canes." 

"  Let  any  boy  speak  a  word  without  leave,"  said  Mr. 
Squeers,  "  and  I'll  take  the  skin  off  his  back." 

Two  letters  will  serve  as  samples  of  the  rest: 

"  Graymarsh.     Stand  up,  Graymarsh." 


34  DICKENS  AS  AN  EDUCATOR. 

Graymarsh  stood  up,  while  Squeers  read  his  letter: 

"  Graymarsh's  maternal  aunt  is  very  glad  to  hear  he's  so 
well  and  happy,  and  sends  her  respectful  complinients  to 
Mrs.  Squeers,  and  thinks  she  must  be  an  angel.  She  like- 
wise thinks  Mr.  Squeers  is  too  good  for  this  world;  but 
hopes  he  may  long  be  spared  to  carry  on  the  business. 
Would  have  sent  the  two  pair  of  stockings  as  desired,  but 
is  short  of  money,  so  forwards  a  tract  instead,  and  hopes 
Graymarsh  will  put  his  trust  in  Providence.  Hopes,  above 
all,  that  he  will  study  in  every  thing  to  please  Mr.  and 
Mrs.  Squeers,  and  look  upon  them  as  his  only  friends; 
and  that  he  will  love  Master  Squeers;  and  not  object  to 
sleeping  five  in  a  bed,  which  no  Christian  should.  Ah!  " 
said  Squeers,  folding  it  up,  "  a  delightful  letter.  Very 
affecting  indeed." 

"  Mobbs "  was  next  called,  and  his  letter  was  read 
to  him: 

"  Mobbs's  stepmother,"  said  Squeers,  "  took  to  her  bed 
on  hearing  that  he  wouldn't  eat  fat,  and  has  been  very  ill 
ever  since.  She  wishes  to  know,  by  an  early  post,  where 
he  expects  to  go  to,  if  he  quarrels  with  his  vittles;  and 
with  what  feelings  he  could  turn  up  his  nose  at  the  cow's- 
liver  broth,  after  his  good  master  had  asked  a  blessing  on 
it.  This  was  told  her  in  the  London  newspapers — not  by 
Mr.  Squeers,  for  he  is  too  kind  and  too  good  to  set  any- 
body against  anybody — and  it  has  vexed  her  so  much, 
Mobbs  can't  think.  She  is  sorry  to  find  he  is  discontented, 
which  is  sinful  and  horrid,  and  hopes  Mr.  Squeers  will  flog 
him  into  a  happier  state  of  mind;  with  this  view,  she  has 
also  stopped  his  halfpenny  a  week  pocket-money,  and  given 
a  double-bladed  knife  with  a  corkscrew  in  it  to  the  mission- 
aries, which  she  had  bought  on  purpose  for  him." 

"  A  sulky  state  of  feeling,"  said  Squeers,  after  a  terrible 
pause,  during  which  he  had  moistened  the  palm  of  his 
right  hand  again,  "  won't  do.  Cheerfulness  and  content- 
ment must  be  kept  up.     ^Mobbs,  come  to  me!" 

Mobbs  moved  slowly  toward  the  desk,  rubbing  his  eyes 
in  anticipation  of  good  cause  for  doing  so;  and  he  soon 
afterward  retired  by  the  side  door,  with  as  good  a  cause  as 
a  boy  need  have. 

There  are  still  school  tyrants  who  talk  with  philo- 
sophic air  of  flogging  children  to  make  them  happier,  and 


THE   OVERTHROW   OF   COERCION.  35 

others  who  say  with  hard  tones  and  clenched  hands  that 
"  the  one  thing  they  will  not  allow  in  their  schools  is  a 
sulky  boy  or  girl,"  and  they  mean,  when  they  say  so,  that 
if  a  boy  is  sulky  they  take  no  steps  to  find  out  the  cause 
of  his  disease  or  the  natural  remedy  for  it,  but  they 
apply  the  universal  remedy  of  the  old-fashioned  quack 
trainer  and  whip  the  poor  boy,  who  is  already  suffering 
from  some  physical  or  nervous  derangement.  Squeers 
and  such  teachers  are  brother  tyrants.  They  practise 
the  Squeers's  doctrine — "  A  sulky  state  of  feeling  won't 
do.  Cheerfulness  and  contentment  must  be  kept  up. 
Mobbs,  come  to  me " — to  make  children  cheerful  and 
contented. 

One  of  the  most  heart-stirring  cases  in  Dotheboys 
Hall  was  that  of  poor  Smike.  He  had  been  sent  to 
Squeers  when  an  infant.  He  was  a  young  man  now,  but 
he  had  been  starved  so  that  he  wore  still  around  his  long 
neck  the  frill  of  the  collar  that  loving  hands  had  placed 
there  when  he  was  a  little  child.  Ill  treatment  and  lack 
of  proper  food  had  made  him  almost  an  imbecile,  and  he 
was  the  drudge  of  the  institution.  l!s^icholas  was  at- 
tracted by  the  anxious,  longing  looks  of  the  boy,  as  his 
eyes  followed  Squeers  from  place  to  place  on  their  arrival 
from  London. 

He  was  lame;  and  as  lie  feigned  to  be  busy  in  arrang- 
irg  the  table,  glanced  at  the  letters  with  a  look  so  keen, 
and  yet  so  dispirited  and  hopeless,  that  Nicholas  could 
hardly  bear  to  watch  him. 

"What  are  you  bothering  about  there,  Smike?"  cried 
Mrs.  Squeers;    "  let  the  things  alone,  can't  you," 

"  Eh!"  said  Squeers,  looking  up.     "  Oh!  it's  you,  is  it?  " 

"  Yes,  sir,"  replied  the  youth,  pressing  his  hands  to- 
gether, as  though  to  control,  by  force,  the  nervous  wander- 
ing of  his  fingers;    "  is  there " 

"Well!"  said  Squeers. 

"  Have  you — did  anybody — has  nothing  been  heard 
— about  me?  " 

"  Devil  a  bit,"  replied  Squeers  testily. 

The  lad  withdrew  his  eyes,  and,  putting  his  hand  to 
his  face,  moved  toward  the  door. 

"  Not  a  word,"  resumed  Squeers,  "  and  never  will  be." 


36  DICKENS  AS  AN  EDUCATOR. 

This  is  one  of  the  pathetic  pictures  that  awoke  the 
heart  of  humanity.  Nicholas  was  the  first  person  who 
had  ever  sympathized  with  Smike,  so  the  poor  fellow 
naturally  gave  to  Nicholas  the  pent-up  love  of  his  dwarfed 
nature,  and  kept  near  him  whenever  it  was  possible  to 
do  so. 

Dickens  made  Smike  the  centre  of  the  terrible  inter- 
est in  Dotheboys  Hall. 

Poor  Smike  was  so  badly  treated  that  he  ran  away, 
but,  after  a  long  chase,  he  was  brought  home  in  triumph 
by  Mrs.  Squeers,  bound  like  an  animal.  Squeers,  of 
course,  determined  to  flog  him  before  all  the  boys  as  an 
example,  and  this  led  to  the  first  great  step  toward  the 
overthrow  of  the  power  of  Squeers  in  Dotheboys  Hall. 

The  news  that  Smike  had  been  caught  and  brought 
back  in  triumph,  ran  like  wildfire  through  the  hungry 
community,  and  expectation  was  on  tiptoe  all  the  morning. 
On  tiptoe  it  was  destined  to  remain,  however,  until  after- 
noon; when  Squeers,  having  refreshed  himself  with  his 
dinner,  and  further  strengthened  himself  by  an  extra  liba- 
tion or  so,  made  his  appearance  (accompanied  by  his  ami- 
able partner)  with  a  countenance  of  portentous  import, 
and  a  fearful  instrument  of  flagellation,  strong,  supple, 
wax-ended,  and  new — in  short,  purchased  that  morning, 
expressly  for  the  occasion. 

"Is  every  boy  here?"  asked  Squeers,  in  a  tremendous 
voice. 

Every  boy  was  there,  but  every  boy  was  afraid  to 
speak;  so  Squeers  glared  along  the  lines  to  assure  him- 
self; and  every  eye  drooped,  and  every  head  cowered  down, 
as  he  did  so. 

"  Each  boy  keep  his  place,"  said  Squeers,  administering 
his  favourite  blow  to  the  desk,  and  regarding  with  gloomy 
satisfaction  the  universal  start  which  it  never  failed  to 
occasion.     "  Nickleby!    to  your  desk,  sir." 

It  was  remarked  by  more  than  one  small  observer  that 
there  was  a  very  curious  and  unusual  expression  in  the 
usher's  face;  but  he  took  his  seat,  without  opening  his  lips 
in  reply.  Squeers,  casting  a  triumphant  glance  at  his 
assistant,  and  a  look  of  most  comprehensive  despotism  on 
the  boys,  left  the  room,  and  shortly  afterward  returned, 
dragging  Smike  by  the  collar — or  rather  by  that  fragment 


THE   OVERTHROW   OF   COERCION.  37 

of  his  jacket  which  was  nearest  the  place  where  his  collai 
would  have  been  had  he  boasted  such  a  decoration. 

In  any  other  place  the  appearance  of  the  wretched, 
jaded,  spiritless  object  would  have  occasioned  a  murmur 
of  compassion  and  remonstrance.  It  had  some  effect,  even 
there;  for  the  lookers-on  moved  uneasily  in  their  seats, 
and  a  few  of  the  boldest  ventured  to  steal  looks  at  each 
other,  expressive  of  indignation  and  pity. 

They  were  lost  on  Squeers,  however,  whose  gaze  was 
fastened  on  the  luckless  Smike,  as  he  inquired,  according- 
to  custom  in  such  cases,  whether  he  had  anything  to  say 
for  himself. 

"  Nothing,  I  suppose?  "  said  Squeers,  with  a  diabolical 
grin. 

Smike  glanced  round,  and  his  eye  rested  for  an  instant 
on  Nicholas,  as  if  he  had  expected  him  to  intercede;  but 
his  look  was  riveted  on  his  desk. 

"  Have  you  anything  to  say?  "  demanded  Squeers 
again;  giving  his  right  arm  two  or  three  flourishes  to  try 
its  power  and  suppleness.  "  Stand  a  little  out  of  the  way, 
Mrs,  Squeers,  my  dear;    I've  hardly  got  room  enough." 

"Spare  me,  sir!"  cried  Smike. 

"Oh!  that's  all,  is  it?"  said  Squeers.  "Yes,  I'll  flog 
you  within  an  inch  of  your  life,  and  spare  you  that." 

"  Ha,  ha,  ha,"  laughed  Mrs.  Squeers,  "  that's  a  good 
'un!" 

"  I  was  driven  to  do  it,"  said  Smike  faintly,  and  casting 
another  imploring  look  on  him. 

"  Driven  to  do  it,  were  you?  "  said  Squeers.  "  Oh!  it 
wasn't  your  fault;   it  was  mine,  I  suppose — eh?  " 

"  A  nasty,  ungrateful,  pig-headed,  brutish,  obstinate, 
sneaking  dog,"  exclaimed  Mrs.  Squeers,  taking  Smike's 
head  under  her  arm,  and  administering  a  cuff  at  every  epi- 
thet;  "what  does  he  mean  by  that?  " 

"  Stand  aside,  my  dear,"  replied  Squeers.  "  We'll  try 
and  find  out." 

Mrs.  Squeers,  being  out  of  breath  with  her  exertions, 
complied.  Squeers  caught  the  boy  firmly  in  his  grip;  one 
desperate  cut  had  fallen  on  his  body — he  was  wincing  from 
the  lash,  and  uttering  a  scream  of  pain — it  was  raised 
again,  and  again  about  to  fall — when  Nicholas  Nickleby 
suddenly  starting  up,  cried:  "  Stop!"  in  a  voice  that  made 
the  rafters  ring. 

"Who  cried  stop?"  said  Squeers,  turning  savagely  round. 
4 


38  DICKENS  AS  AN  EDUCATOR. 

"  I,"  said  Nicholas,  stepping  forward.  "  This  nmst  not 
go  on." 

"  Must  not  go  on!"   cried  Squeers,  almost  in  a  shriek. 

"No!"  thundered  Nicholas. 

Aghast  and  stupefied  by  the  boldness  of  the  interfer- 
ence, Squeers  released  his  hold  of  Smike,  and,  falling  back 
a  pace  or  two,  ^azed  upon  Nicholas  with  looks  that  were 
positively  frightful. 

"I  say  must  not,"  repeated  Nicholas,  nothing  daunted; 
"  shall  not.     I  will  prevent  it." 

Squeers  continued  to  gaze  upon  him,  with  his  eyes 
starting  out  of  his  head;  but  astonishment  had  actually, 
for  the  moment,  bereft  him  of  speech. 

"  You  have  disregarded  all  my  quiet  interference  in  the 
miserable  lad's  behalf,"  said  Nicholas;  "  you  have  returned 
no  answer  to  the  letter  in  which  I  begged  forgiveness  for 
him,  and  offered  to  be  responsible  that  he  would  remain 
quietly  here.  Don't  blame  me  for  this  public  interference. 
You  have  brought  it  upon  yourself,  not  I." 

"Sit  down,  beggar!"  screamed  Squeers,  almost  beside 
himself  with  rage,  and  seizing  Smike  as  he  spoke. 

"Wretch!"  rejoined  Nicholas  fiercely,  "touch  him  at 
your  peril!  I  will  not  stand  by  and  see  it  done.  My  blood 
is  up,  and  I  have  the  strength  of  ten  such  men  as  you. 
Look  to  yourself,  for,  by  Heaven,  I  will  not  spare  you,  if 
you  drive  me  on!" 

"Stand  back!"  cried  Squeers,  brandishing  his  weapon. 

"  I  have  a  long  series  of  insults  to  avenge,"  said  Nicho- 
las, flushed  with  passion;  "and  my  indignation  is  aggra- 
vated by  the  dastardly  cruelties  practised  on  helpless  in- 
fancy in  this  foul  den.  Have  a  care;  for,  if  you  do  raise 
the  devil  within  me,  the  consequences  shall  fall  heavily 
upon  your  own  head!" 

He  had  scarcely  spoken,  when  Squeers,  in  a  violent  out- 
break of  wrath,  and  with  a  cry  like  the  howl  of  a  wild 
beast,  spit  upon  him,  and  struck  him  a  blow  across  the 
face  with  his  instrument  of  torture,  which  raised  up  a  bar 
of  livid  flesh  as  it  was  inflicted.  Smarting  with  the  agony 
of  the  blow,  and  concentrating  into  that  one  moment  all 
his  feelings  of  rage,  scorn,  and  indignation,  Nicholas; 
sprang  upon  him,  wrested  the  weapon  from  his  hand,  and 
pinning  him  by  the  throat,  beat  the  ruffian  till  he  roared 
for  mercy. 

The  boys — with  the  exception  of  Master  Squeers,  whcw- 


THE   OVERTHROW   OF   COERCION.  39 

coming  to  his  father's  assistance,  harassed  the  enemy  in 
the  rear — moved  not  hand  or  foot;  but  Mrs.  Squeers,  with 
many  shrieks  for  aid,  hung  on  to  the  tail  of  her  partner's 
coat,  and  endeavoured  to  drag  him  from  his  infuriated 
adversary;  while  Miss  Squeers,  who  had  been  peeping 
through  the  keyhole  in  expectation  of  a  very  different 
scene,  darted  in  at  the  very  beginning  of  the  attack,  and 
after  launching  a  shower  of  inkstands  at  the  usher's  head, 
beat  Nicholas  to  her  heart's  content:  animating  herself  at 
every  blow  with  the  recollection  of  his  having  refused  her 
proffered  love,  and  thus  imparting  additional  strength  to 
an  arm  which  (as  she  took  after  her  mother  in  this  re- 
spect) was,  at  no  time,  one  of  the  weakest. 

Nicholas,  in  the  full  torrent  of  his  violence,  felt  the 
blows  no  more  than  if  they  had  been  dealt  with  feathers; 
but,  becoming  tired  of  the  noise  and  uproar,  and  feeling 
that  his  arm  grew  weak  besides,  he  threw  all  his  remaining 
strength  into  half  a  dozen  finishing  cuts  and  flung  Squeers 
from  him,  with  all  the  force  he  could  muster.  The  vio- 
lence of  his  fall  precipitated  Mrs.  Squeers  completely  over 
an  adjacent  form;  and  Squeers,  striking  his  head  against 
it  in  his  descent,  lay  at  his  full  length  on  the  ground, 
stunned  and  motionless. 

Having  brought  affairs  to  this  happy  termination,  and 
ascertained,  to  his  thorough  satisfaction,  that  Squeers  w^as 
only  stunned,  and  not  dead  (upon  which  point  he  had  had 
some  unpleasant  doubts  at  first),  Nicholas  left  his  family 
to  restore  him  and  retired  to  consider  what  course  he  had 
better  adopt.  He  looked  anxiously  round  for  Smike,  as  he 
left  the  room,  but  he  was  nowhere  to  be  seen. 

After  a  brief  consideration,  he  packed  up  a  few  clothes 
in  a  small  leathern  valise,  and,  finding  that  nobody  offered 
to  oppose  his  progress,  marched  boldly  out  by  the  front 
door  and  started  to  walk  to  London. 

Near  the  school  he  met  John  Browdie,  the  honest  corn 
factor. 

John  saw  that  ISTicholas  had  received  a  severe  blow, 
and  asked  the  reason. 

"  The  fact  is,"  said  Nicholas,  not  very  well  knowing 
how  to  make  the  avowal,  "  the  fact  is,  that  I  have  been  ill- 
treated." 

"Noa!"  interposed  John  Browdie.  in  a  tone  of  com- 
passion;   for  he  was  a  giant  in  strength  and  stature,  and 


40  DICKENS  AS  AN   EDUCATOR. 

Nicholas,  very  likely,  in  his  eyes,  seemed  a  mere  dwarf; 
"  dean't  say  thot." 

"  Yes,  I  have,"  replied  Nicholas,  "  by  that  man  Squeers, 
and  I  have  beaten  him  soundly,  and  am  leaving  this  place 
in  consequence." 

"What!"  cried  John  Browdie,  with  such  an  ecstatic 
shout,  that  the  horse  quite  shied  at  it.  "  Beatten  the 
schoolmeasther!  Ho!  ho!  ho!  Beatten  the  schoolmeas- 
ther!  who  ever  heard  o'  the  loike  o'  that  noo!  Giv'  us  thee 
hond  agean,  yongster.  Beatten  the  schoolmeasther!  Dang 
it,  I  loove  thee  for't." 

And  the  world  agreed,  and  still  agrees,  with  John 
Browdie. 

Squeers  and  Smike  began  the  real  movement  against 
cruelty  and  corporal  punishment  not  only  in  schools,  but 
in  homes.  Dickens  described  both  characters  so  admi- 
rably that  the  world  hated  Squeers  and  pitied  Smike  to 
the  limit  of  its  power  to  hate  and  pity,  and  unconsciously 
jthe  world  associated  cruelty  and  corporal  punishment 
with  Squeers.  This  was  exactly  what  Dickens  desired. 
The  hatred  of  Squeers  led  to  a  strong  disapproval  of  his 
practices.  Corporal  punishment  was  associated  with  an 
unpopular  man,  and  it  lost  its  respectable  character  and 
never  regained  it.  The  dislike  for  Squeers  was  accentu- 
ated by  the  long-continued  sympathy  and  hopefulness  felt 
for  Smike  as  he  gradually  succumbed  to  the  terrible  dis- 
ease, consumption,  induced  by  poor  food,  neglect,  and 
cruelty. 

Squeers  and  Smike  are  doing  their  good  work  still, 
and  doing  it  well.  They  could  do  it  much  better  if  men 
and  women  when  they  have  become  acquainted  with 
Squeers  would  candidly  ask  themselves  the  question,  "  In 
what  respects  am  I  like  Squeers  ? "  instead  of  yielding  to 
the  feeling  of  self-satisfaction  that  they  are  so  very  un- 
like him. 

Just  before  writing  about  the  coercive  tyranny  of 
Squeers  in  his  school,  Dicji;ens  had  written  Oliver  Twist, 
in  which  he  hacl  ma^e  a  most  vigorous  attack  upon  two 
classes  of  characters  for  their  tyrannical  treatment  of 
children,  and  especially  on  account  of  their  frequent  use 


THE   OVERTHROW   OF   COERCION.  41 

of  corporal  punishment.  Bumble  represented  the  officials 
in  institutions  for  children,  and  "  the  gentleman  in  the 
white  waistcoat "  was  given  as  a  type  of  the  advanced 
Christian  philanthropy  of  his  time.  He  meant  well,  gave 
his  time  freely  to  attend  the  meetings  of  the  board,  and 
supposed  he  was  doing  right;  but  Dickens  wished  to  let 
philanthropists  see  that  they  were  terribly  cruel  to  the 
helpless  children,  and  that  their  good  intentions  could 
not  condone  their  harshness,  even  though  it  resulted  from 
ignorance  and  lack  of  reverence  for  childhood,  and  not 
from  deliberate  evil  intentions. 

Poor,  friendless  little  Oliver!  His  beautiful  face 
and  gentle  spirit  might  have  touched  the  hardest  heart, 
but  the  institutional  heart  becomes  hard  easily,  even  two 
generations  after  the  time  of  Bumble  and  "  the  gentle- 
man in  the  immaculate  white  waistcoat." 

Dickens  says: 

It  must  not  be  supposed  that  Oliver  was  denied  the 
benefit  of  exercise,  the  pleasure  of  society,  or  the  advan- 
tages of  religious  consolation  in  the  workhouse.  As  for 
exercise,  it  was  nice  cold  weather,  and  he  was  allowed  to 
perform  his  ablutions  every  morning  under  the  pump,  in  a 
stone  yard,  in  the  presence  of  Mr.  Bumble,  who  prevented 
his  catching  cold,  and  caused  a  tingling  sensation  to  per- 
vade his  frame,  by  repeated  applications  of  the  cane.  As 
for  society,  he  was  carried  every  other  day  into  the  hall, 
where  the  boys  dined,  and  there  sociably'  flogged  as  a  pub- 
lic warning  and  example.  And  so  far  from  being  denied 
the  advantage  of  religious  consolation,  he  was  kicked  into 
the  same  apartment  every  evening  at  prayer  time,  and 
there  permitted  to  listen  to,  and  console  his  mind  with,  a 
general  supplication  of  the  boys,  containing  a  special 
clause,  therein  inserted  by  authority  of  the  board,  in  which 
they  entreated  to  be  made  good,  virtuous,  contented,  and 
obedient,  and  to  be  guarded  from  the  sins  and  vices  of 
Oliver  Twist. 

After  Oliver  had  been  sent  to  work  for  Mr.  Sower- 
berry  he  was  goaded  to  desperation  one  evening  by  the 
disrespectful  remarks  of  Xoah  Claypole  about  his  mother, 
and  bravely  gave  the  mean  bully  the  personal  chastise- 
ment he  so  richly  deserved.     Xoah  was  sent  to  complain 


42  DICKENS  AS  AN  EDUCATOR. 

to  the  parish  board,  and  the  gentleman  in  the  white  waist- 
coat said: 

"  Bumble,  just  step  up  to  Sowerberry's  with  your  cane, 
and  see  what's  best  to  be  done.     Don't  spare  him,  Bumble." 

"  No,  I  will  not,  sir,"  replied  the  beadle,  adjusting*  the 
wax  end  which  was  twisted  round  the  bottom  of  his  cane, 
for  purposes  of  parochial  flagellation. 

"  Tell  Sowerberry  not  to  spare  him  either.  They'll 
never  do  anything  with  him  without  stripes  and  bruises," 
said  the  gentleman  in  the  white  waistcoat. 

The  innocent,  manly  child  was  beaten  unm.ercifully 
and  abused  cruelly  by  Sowerberry  and  Bumble,  yet  he 
bore  all  their  taunts  and  floggings  without  a  tear  until  he 
was  alone.  Then,  "  when  there  was  none  to  see  or  hear 
him,  he  fell  upon  his  knees  on  the  floor,  and,  hiding  his 
face  in  his  hands,  wept  such  tears  as,  God  send  for  the 
credit  of  our  nature,  few  so  young  may  ever  have  cause 
t9  pour  out  before  him !  " 

There  are  not  many  "  gentlemen  in  white  waistcoats  " 
of  the  type  described  by  Dickens  now  on  charitable 
boards,  and  the  enlightened  sentiment  of  civilized  coun- 
tries turns  the  legal  processes  of  nations  upon  officials 
who  dare  to  treat  children  unkindly.  Dickens  made  hu- 
mane people  everywhere  sympathize  with  Mr.  Meagles, 
who  said :  "  Whenever  I  see  a  beadle  in  full  fig  coming 
down  a  street  on  a  Sunday  at  the  head  of  a  charity 
school,  I  am  obliged  to  turn  and  run  away,  or  I  should 
hit  him." 

Ten  years  after  Squeers  began  his  good  work  Dickens 
produced  Squeers's  associate,  Mr.  Creakle,  the  master  of 
Salem  House. 

David  Copperfield  was  sent  to  Salem  House  by  his 
stepfather,  Mr.  Murdstone,  because  he  bit  his  hand  when 
he  was  punishing  him  unjustly.  For  this  offence  he  was 
compelled  to  wear  a  placard  on  his  back  on  which  was 
written :  "  Take  care  of  him.  He  bites."  This  dastardly 
practice  of  labelling  youthful  offenders  persisted  until  very 
recent  times.  Children  in  schools  are  even  yet  in  some 
places  degraded  by  inconsiderate  teachers  by  being  com- 


THE   OVERTHROW   OF   COERCION.  43. 

pelled    to    "wear    some    indication    of    their    misconduct. 
Dickens  vigorously  condemned  this  outrage  in  1849. 

David  was  sent  to  school  during  the  holidays,  and  was 
soon  brought  before  Mr.  Creakle  by  Tungay,  his  servant 
with  the  wooden  leg. 

"  So,"  said  Mr.  Creakle.  "  this  is  the  young  gentleman 
whose  teeth  are  to  be  filed  I      Turn  him  round." 

Mr.  Creakle's  face  was  fiery,  and  his  eyes  were  small 
and  deep  in  his  head;  he  had  thick  veins  in  his  forehead,  a 
little  nose,  and  a  large  chin.  He  was  bald  on  the  top  of 
his  head;  and  had  some  thin,  wet-looking  hair  that  was 
just  turning  gray  brushed  across  each  temple,  so  that  the 
two  sides  interlaced  on  his  forehead. 

"  Now,"  said  Mr.  Creakle.  "  What's  the  report  of  this 
boy?" 

"  There's  nothing  against  him  yet,"  returned  the  man 
with  the  wooden  leg.     "  There  has  been  no  opportunity." 

I  thought  Mr.  Creakle  was  disappointed.  I  thought 
}>Irs.  and  Miss  Creakle  (at  whom  I  now  glanced  for  the  first 
time,  and  who  were,  both,  thin  and  quiet)  were  not  disap- 
pointed. 

"Come  here,  sir!"  said  Mr.  Creakle,  beckoning  to  me. 

"Come  here  I"  said  the  man  with  the  wooden  leg,  re- 
peating the  gesture. 

"  I  have  the  happiness  of  knowing  your  stepfather," 
w^hispered  Mr.  Creakle,  taking  me  by  the  ear;  "  and  a 
worthy  man  he  is,  and  a  man  of  strong  character.  He 
knows  me,  and  I  know  him.  Do  you  know  me!  Hey?  " 
said  Mr.  Creakle,  pinching  my  ear  with  ferocious  play- 
fulness. 

"  Not  yet,  sir,"  I  said,  flinching  with  the  pain. 

"Not  yet!  Hey?"  repeated  Mr.  Creakle.  "But  you 
will  soon.     Hey?" 

"  You  will  soon.  Hey?  "  repeated  the  man  with  the 
wooden  leg.  I  afterward  found  that  he  generally  acted, 
with  his  strong  voice,  as  ^Ir.  Creakle's  interpreter  to  the 
boys. 

I  was  very  much  frightened,  and  said,  I  hoped  so.  if  he 
pleased.  I  felt  all  this  while  as  if  my  ear  were  blazing; 
he  pinched  it  so  hard. 

"  I'll  tell  you  what  I  am,"  whispered  Mr.  Creakle,  let- 
ting it  go  at  last,  with  a  screw  at  parting  that  brought  the 
water  to  my  eyes,  "  I'm  a  Tartar." 


44  DICKENS  AS  AN  EDUCATOR. 

Mr.  Creakle  proved  to  be  as  good  as  his  word.  He 
was  a  Tartar. 

On  the  first  day  of  school  he  revealed  himself.  His 
opening  address  was  very  brief  and  to  the  point. 

"  Now,  boys,  this  is  a  new  half.  Take  care  what  you're 
about  in  this  new  half.  Come  fresh  up  to  the  lessons,  I 
advise  you,  for  I  come  fresh  up  to  the  punishment.  I  won't 
flinch.  It  will  be  of  no  use  your  rubbing  yourselves;  you 
won't  rub  the  marks  out  that  I  shall  give  you.  Now  get  to 
work,  every  boy!" 

When  this  dreadful  exordium  was  over,.  Mr.  Creakle 
came  to  where  I  sat,  and  told  me  that  if  I  were  famous  for 
biting,  he  was  famous  for  biting,  too.  He  then  showed 
me  the  cane,  and  asked  me  what  I  thought  of  that,  for  a 
tooth?  Was  it  a  sharp  tooth,  hey?  Was  it  a  double  tooth, 
hey?  Had  it  a  deep  prong,  hey?  Did  it  bite,  hey?  Did  it 
bite?  At  every  question  he  gave  me  a  fleshy  cut  with  it 
that  made  me  writhe. 

Not  that  I  mean  to  say  these  were  special  marks  of  dis- 
tinction, which  only  I  received.  On  the  contrary,  a  large 
majority  of  the  boys  (especially  the  smaller  ones)  were 
\isited  with  similar  instances  of  notice,  as  Mr.  Creakle 
made  the  round  of  the  schoolroom.  Half  the  establish- 
ment was  writhing  and  crying  before  the  day's  work 
began;  and  how  much  of  it  had  writhed  and  cried  before 
the  daj^'s  work  was  over  I  am  really  afraid  to  recollect, 
lest  I  should  seem  to  exaggerate. 

I  Should  think  there  never  can  have  been  a  man  who 
enjoyed  his  profession  more  than  Mr.  Creakle  did.  He 
had  a  delight  in  cutting  at  the  boys,  which  was  like  the 
satisfaction  of  a  craving  appetite.  I  am  confident  that 
he  couldn't  resist  a  chubby  boy  especially;  that  there 
was  a  fascination  in  such  a  subject  w^hich  made  him  rest- 
less in  his  mind  until  he  had  scored  and  marked  him  for 
the  day.  I  was  chubby  myself,  and  ought  to  know.  I  am 
sure  when  I  think  6fthe  fellow  now,  my  blood  rises  against 
him  wdth  the  disinterested  indignation  I  should  feel  if  I 
could ^ave  known  all  aliout  him  without  having  ever  been  in 
hiJT'^weri—bu.t  it  rises  hotly,  because  I  know  him  to  have 
been  an  incapable  brute,  who  had  no  more  right  to  be  pos- 
sessed of  the  great  trust  he  held  than  to  be  Lord  High  Admi- 
ral or  Commander-in-chief:  in  either  of  which  capacities  it 
is  probable  that  he  would  have  done  infinitely  less  mischief. 


THE   OVERTHROW  OF  COERCION.  45 

Miserable  little  propitiators  of  a  remorseless  idol,  how 
abject  we  were  to  him!  what  a  launch  in  life  I  think  it 
now,  on  looking"  back,  to  be  so  mean  and  servile  to  a  man 
of  such  parts  and  pretensions! 

Twenty  years  after  Dickens  described  Creakle  a  new 
teacher  stood  before  a  class  in  a  large  American  city,  and, 
holding  a  long  rattan  cane  above  his  head,  said  in  a  fierce, 
threatening  tone:  "Do  you  see  that  cane?  Would  you 
like  to  feel  it?  Hey?  Well,  break  any  one  of  my  forty- 
eight  rules  and  you  will  feel  it  all  right."  The  tyrant 
in  adulthood  dies  hard.  ISTo  wonder.  Tyranny  has  been 
wrought  into  our  natures  by  centuries  of  blind  faith  in 
corporal  punishment  as  the  supreme  agency  in  saving  the 
race  from  moral  wreck  and  anarchy  in  childhood  and 
youth.  Men  sought  no  agency  for  the  development  of 
the  good  in  young  lives.  As  they  conceived  it,  their 
duty  was  done  if  they  prevented  their  children  from  doing 
wrong,  and  the  quickest,  easiest,  most  effective  way  they 
knew  to  secure  coercion  was  by  corporal  punishment. 
The  most  successful  tyrant,  he  who  could  most  thoroughly 
terrorize  children  and  keep  them  down  most  completely, 
was  regarded  as  the  best  disciplinarian.  Squeers  and 
Creakle  were  fair  exponents  of  the  almost  universally  rec- 
ognised theory  of  their  day,  and  they  had  many  successors 
in  the  real  schools  of  the  generation  that  followed  them. 
Xo  man  could  remain  a  week  in  a  school  now  if  he  began 
on  the  opening  day  in  the  way  Creakle  did. 

Dickens  was  right  in  revealing  the  position  of  the 
teacher  as  one  of  "  great  trust,"  and  he  was  right,  too,  in 
insisting  that  Creakle  was  no  more  fitted  to  be  a  teacher 
"  than  to  be  Lord  High  Admiral  or  Commander-in-chief, 
in  either  of  which  capacities  it  is  probable  he  would  have 
done  infinitely  less  mischief."  This  was  another  plea 
for  good  normal  schools  and  for  state  supervision. 

Dickens  makes  a  good  point  in  his  remark  about  the 
degradation  of  abject  submission  to  a  man  of  such  parts 
and  pretensions  as  Creakle.  Subordination  always  dwarfs 
the  human  soul,  but  when  the  child  is  forced  to  a  posi- 
tion of  abject  subordination  to  a  coarse  tyrant  the  degra- 
dation is  more  complete  and  more  humiliating.     It  does 


46  DICKENS  AS  AN  EDUCATOR. 

not  mend  matters  for  the  child  when  the  tyrant  is  his 
father.  The  tyranny  of  parenthood  is  usually  the  hardest 
to  escape  from.  » 

In  the  same  book  in  which  Creakle  is  described — David 
Copperfield — Dickens  deals  with  the  tyranny  of  the  home. 
David's  widowed  mother  married  Mr.  Murdstone,  a  hard, 
severe,  austere,  religious  man,  with  an  equally  dreadful 
sister — Jane  Murdstone. 

Firmness  was  the  grand  quality  on  which  both  Mr.  and 
Miss  Murdstone  took  their  stand.  However  I  might  have  ex- 
pressed my  comprehension  of  it  at  that  time,  if  I  had  been 
called  upon,  I  nevertheless  did  clearly  comprehend  in  my 
own  way  that  it  was  another  name  for  tyranny,  and  for  a 
certain  gloomy,  arrogant,  devil's  humour,  that  was  in  them 
both.  The  creed,  as  I  should  state  it  now,  was  this:  Mr. 
Murdstone  was  firm;  nobody  in  his  world  was  to  be  so 
firm  as  Mr.  Murdstone;  nobody  else  in  his  world  was  to  be 
firm  at  all,  for  everybody  was  to  be  bent  to  his  firmness. 

There  was  no  more  depressing  tyranny  in  the  time  of 
Dickens  than  the  tyranny  exercised  in  the  name  of  a  rigid 
and  repressive  religion. 

The  gloomy  taint  that  was  in  the  Murdstone  blood 
darkened  the  Murdstone  religion,  which  was  austere  and 
wrathful.  I  have  thought,  since,  that  its  assuming  that 
character  was  a  necessary  consequence  of  Mr.  Murdstone's 
firmness,  which  wouldn't  allow  him  to  let  anybody  off 
from  the  utmost  w^eight  of  the  severest  penalties  he  could 
find  any  excuse  for.  Be  this  as  it  may,  I  well  remember 
the  tremendous  visages  with  which  we  used  to  go  to 
chnrch,  and  the  changed  air  of  the  place.  Again,  the 
dreaded  Sunday  comes  round,  and  I  file  into  the  old  pew 
first,  like  a  guarded  captive  brought  to  a  condemned  serv- 
ice. Again,  Miss  Murdstone,  in  a  black-velvet  gown,  that 
looks  as  if  it  had  been  made  out  of  a  pall,  follows  close 
upon  me;  then  my  mother;  then  her  husband.  Again,  I 
listen  to  Miss  Murdstone  mumbling  the  responses,  and  em- 
phasizing all  the  dread  words  with  a  cruel  relish.  Again, 
I  see  her  dark  eyes  roll  round  the  church  when  she  says 
"  miserable  sinners,"  as  if  she  were  calling  all  the  congre- 
gation names.  Again,  I  catch  rare  glimpses  of  my  mother, 
moving  her  lips  timidly  between  the  two,  with  one  of  them 


THE  OVERTHROW   OF   COERCION.  47 

muttering-  at  each  ear  like  low  thunder.  Again,  I  wonder 
wdth  a  sudden  fear  whether  it  is  likely  that  our  good  old 
clergyman  can  be  wrong,  and  Mr.  and  Miss  Murdstone 
right,  and  that  all  the  angels  in  heaven  can  be  destroying 
angels.  Again,  if  I  move  a  finger  or  relax  a  muscle  of  my 
face,  Miss  Murdstone  pokes  me  with  her  prayer  book,  and 
makes  my  side  ache. 

Mrs.  Chillip  said:  "Mr.  Murdstone  sets  up  an  image 
of  himself  and  calls  it  the  Divine  Xature,"  and  "  what 
such  people  as  the  Murdstones  call  their  religion  is  a 
vent  for  their  bad  humours  and  arrogance."  Mild  and 
cautious  Mr.  Chillip  observed,  "  I  don't  find  authority 
for  Mr.  and  Miss  Murdstone  in  the  Xew  Testament," 
and  his  good  wife  added,  "  The  darker  tyrant  Mr.  Murd- 
stone becomes,  the  more  ferocious  is  his  religious  doc- 
trine." 

When  David  first  learned  that  Mr.  Murdstone  had 
married  his  mother  he  relieved  the  swelling  in  his  little 
heart  by  crying  in  his  bedroom.  His  mother  naturally 
felt  a  sympathy  for  her  boy.  Mr.  Murdstone  reproved 
her  for  her  lack  of  "  firmness,"  ordered  her  out  of  the 
room,  and  gave  David  his  first  lesson  in  "  obedience." 

"  David,"  he  said,  making  his  lips  thin,  by  pressing 
them  together,  "  if  I  have  an  obstinate  horse  or  dog  to  deal 
with,  what  do  you  think  I  do?  " 

"  I  don't  know." 

"  I  beat  him." 

I  had  answered  in  a  kind  of  breathless  whisper,  but  I 
felt,  in  my  silence,  that  my  breath  was  shorter  now. 

"  I  make  him  wince,  and  smart.  I  say  to  myself,  '  I'll 
conquer  that  fellow;  '  and  if  it  were  to  cost  him  all  the 
blood  he  had,  I  should  do  it." 

There  are  still  a  few  schoolmaster  tyrants  who  boast 
of  their  ability  "  to  subdue  children."  They  are  bar- 
barians, who  understand  neither  the  new  education  nor 
the  new  theology,  who  have  not  learned  to  recognise  and 
reverence  the  individual  selfhood  of  each  child,  who  them- 
selves fear  God's  power  more  than  they  feel  his  love. 

\Yhen  David  was  at  home  for  the  holidays  he  remained 
in  his  own  room  a  considerable  part  of  the  time  reading. 


48  DICKENS  AS  AN  EDUCATOR. 

This  aroused  the  anger  of  Mr.  Murdstone,  and  he  charged 
David  with  being  sullen. 

"  I  was  sorry,  David,"  said  Mr.  Murdstone,  turning  his 
head  and  his  ej^es  stiffly  toward  me,  "  to  observe  that  you 
are  of  a  sullen  disposition.  This  is  not  a  character  that  I 
can  suffer  to  develop  itself  beneath  my  eyes  without  an 
effort  at  improvement.  You  must  endeavour,  sir,  to 
change  it.     We  must  endeavour  to  change  it  for  you." 

"  I  beg  your  pardon,  sir,"  I  faltered.  "  I  have  never 
meant  to  be  sullen  since  I  came  back." 

"Don't  take  refuge  in  a  lie,  sir!"  he  returned  so 
fiercely,  that  I  saw  my  mother  involuntarily  put  out  her 
trembling  hand  as  if  to  interpose  between  us.  "  You  have 
withdrawn  yourself  in  your  sullenness  to  j^our  own  room. 
You  have  kept  your  room  when  you  ought  to  have  been 
here.  You  know  now,  once  for  all,  that  I  require  you  to 
be  here,  and  not  there.  Further,  that  I  require  you  to 
bring  obedience  here.  You  know  me,  David.  I  will  have 
it  done." 

Miss  Murdstone  gave  a  hoarse  chuckle. 

"  I  will  have  a  respectful,  prompt,  and  ready  bearing  to- 
ward myself,"  he  continued,  "  and  toward  Jane  Murdstone, 
and  toward  your  mother.  I  will  not  have  this  room 
shunned  as  if  it  were  infected,  at  the  pleasure  of  a  child. 
Sit  down." 

He  ordered  me  like  a  dog,  and  I  obeyed  like  a  dog. 

David's  lessons,  which  had  been  "  along  a  path  of 
roses  "  when  his  mother  was  alone  with  him,  became  a 
path  of  thorns  after  the  Murdstones  came. 

The  lessons  were  a  grievous  daily  drudgery  and  misery. 
They  were  very  long,  very  numerous,  very  hard — perfectly 
unintelligible. 

Let  me  remember  how  it  used  to  be.  I  come  into  the 
parlour  after  breakfast  with  my  books,  an  exercise  book 
and  a  slate.  My  mother  is  ready  for  me,  but  not  half  so 
ready  as  Mr.  Murdstone,  or  as  Miss  Murdstone,  sitting  near 
my  mother  stringing  steel  beads.  The  very  sight  of  these 
two  has  such  an  influence  over  me,  that  I  begin  to  feel  the 
words  I  have  been  at  infinite  pains  to  get  into  my  head  all 
sliding  away,  and  going  I  don't  know  where.  I  wonder 
where  they  do  go,  by  the  bye? 

I  hand   the   first  book  to   my  mother.     I   take   a  last 


THE   Ov^EHTHROW  OF   COERCION.  49 

drowning  look  at  the  pag-e  as  I  g-ive  it  into  her  hand,  and 
start  off  aloud  at  a  racing  pace  while  I  have  got  it  fresh.  I 
trip  over  a  word.  Mr.  Murdstone  looks  up.  I  trip  over 
another  word.  Miss  Murdstone  looks  up.  I  redden,  tum- 
ble over  half  a  dozen  words,  and  stop.  I  think  my  mother 
would  show  me  the  book  if  she  dared,  but  she  does  not 
dare,  and  she  says  softly: 

"Oh,  Davy,  Davy!"  ' 

"  Now,  Clara,"  says  Mr.  Murdstone,  "  be  firm  with  the 
boy.  Don't  say  'Oh,  Davy,  Davy!  '  That's  childish.  He 
knows  his  lesson,  or  he  does  not  know  it," 

"  He  does  not  know  it,"  Miss  ^Murdstone  interposed 
awfully. 

"  I  am  really  afraid  he  does  not,"  says  my  mother. 

"  Then  j'ou  see,  Clara,"  returns  ]Miss  Murdstone,  "  you 
should  just  give  him  the  book  back,  and  make  him 
know  it." 

"  Yes,  certainly,"  says  my  mother;  "  that's  what  I  in- 
tended to  do,  my  dear  Jane.  Now,  Davj-,  try  once  more, 
and  don't  be  stupid." 

I  obey  the  first  clause  of  the  injunction  by  trying  once 
more,  but  am  not  so  successful  with  the  second,  for  I  am 
very  stupid.  I  tumble  down  before  I  get  to  the  old  place, 
at  a  point  where  I  was  all  right  before,  and  stop  to  think. 
But  I  can't  think  about  the  lesson.  I  think  of  the  number 
of  yards  of  net  in  Miss  Murdstone's  cap,  or  of  the  price  of 
Mr.  Murdstone's  dressing-gown,  or  any  such  ridiculous 
problem  that  I  have  no  business  with,  and  don't  want  to 
have  anj'thing  at  all  to  do  with.  Mr.  Murdstone  makes  a 
movement  of  impatience  which  I  have  been  expecting  for 
a  long  time.  Miss  Murdstone  does  the  same.  ^My  mother 
glances  submissively  at  them,  shuts  the  book,  and  lays  it 
by  as  an  arrear  to  be  worked  out  when  my  other  tasks 
are  done. 

There  is  a  pile  of  these  arrears  very  soon,  and  it  swells 
like  a  rolling  snowball.  The  bigger  it  gets  the  more  stupid 
I  get.  The  case  is  so  hopeless,  and  I  feel  that  I  am  wallow- 
ing  in  such  a  bog  of  nonsense,  that  I  give  up  all  idea  of 
getting  out,  and  abandon  myself  to  my  fate.  The  despair- 
ing w^ay  in  which  my  mother  and  I  look  at  each  other,  as  1 
blunder  on,  is  truly  melancholy.  But  the  greatest  effect 
in  these  miserable  lessons  is  when  my  mother  (thinking 
nobody  is  observing  her)  tries  to  give  me  the  cue  by  the 
motion  of  her  lips.     At  that  instant,  Miss  Murdstone,  who 


50  DICKENS  AS  AN  EDUCATOR. 

has  been  lying  in  wait  for  nothing  else  all  along,  says  in  a 
deep  warning  voice: 

"Clara!" 

My  mother  starts,  colours,  and  smiles  faintly.  Mr. 
Murdstone  comes  out  of  his  chair,  takes  the  book,  throws 
it  at  me  or  boxes  my  ears  with  it,  and  turns  me  out  of 
the  room  by  the  shoulders. 

It  seems  to  me,  at  this  distance  of  time,  as  if  my  unfor- 
tunate studies  generally  took  this  course.  I  could  have 
done  very  well  if  I  had  been  without  the  Murdstones;  but 
the  influence  of  the  Murdstones  upon  me  was  like  the  fas- 
cination of  two  snakes  on  a  wretched  young  bird.  Even 
when  I  did  get  through  the  morning  with  tolerable  credit, 
there  was  not  much  gained  but  dinner;  for  Miss  Murd- 
stone never  could  endure  to  see  me  untasked,  and  if  I 
rashly  made  any  show  of  being  unemployed,  called  her 
brother's  attention  to  me  by  saying,  "  Clara,  my  dear, 
there's  nothing  like  Avork— give  your  boy  an  exercise." 

One  morning  when  I  went  into  the  parlour  with  my 
books,  I  found  my  mother  looking  anxious.  Miss  Murdstone 
looking  firm,  and  Mr.  Murdstone  binding  something  round 
the  bottom  of  a  cane — a  lithe  and  limber  cane,  which  he 
left  off  binding  when  I  came  in,  and  poised  and  switched 
in  the  air. 

"  I  tell  you,  Clara,"  said  Mr.  Murdstone,  "  I  have  been 
often  flogged  myself." 

"  To  be  sure;   of  course,"  said  Miss  Murdstone. 

"  Certainly,  my  dear  Jane,"  faltered  my  mother  meekly. 
"  But— but  do  you  think  it  did  Edward  good?" 

"  Do  you  think  it  did  Edward  harm,  Clara?  "  asked  Mr. 
Murdstone,  gravely. 

"That's  the  point!"  said  his  sister. 

To  this  my  mother  returned  "  Certainly,  my  dear  Jane," 
and  said  no  more. 

I  felt  apprehensive  that  I  was  personally  interested  in 
this  dialogue,  and  sought  Mr.  Murdstone's  eye  as  it  lighted 
on  mine. 

"  Now,  David,"  he  said — and  I  saw  that  cast  again,  as 
he  said  it — "  you  must  be  far  more  careful  to-day  than 
usual."  He  gave  the  cane  another  poise,  and  another 
switch;  and  having  finished  his  preparation  of  it,  laid  it 
down  beside  him,  with  an  expressive  look,  and  took  up  his 
book. 

This  was  a  good  freshener  to  my  presence  of  mind,  as  a 


THE   OVERTHROW  OF   COERCION.  51 

beginning-.  I  felt  the  words  of  my  lesson  slipping  off,  not 
one  by  one,  or  line  by  line,  but  by  the  entire  page.  I  tried 
to  lay  hold  of  them;  but  they  seemed,  if  I  may  so  express 
it,  to  have  put  skates  on,  and  to  skim  away  from  me  with 
a  smoothness  there  was  no  checking. 

We  began  badly,  and  went  on  worse.  I  had  come  in, 
with  an  idea  of  distinguishing  myself  rather,  conceiving 
that  I  was  very  well  prepared;  but  it  turned  out  to  be 
quite  a  mistake.  Book  after  book  was  added  to  the  heap 
of  failures.  Miss  Murdstone  being  firmly  watchful  of  us  all 
the  time.  And  when  we  came  at  last  to  the  five  thousand 
cheeses  (canes  he  made  it  that  day,  I  remember),  my 
mother  burst  out  crying, 

"Clara!"  said  Miss  Murdstone,  in  her  warning  voice. 

"  I  am  not  quite  well,  my  dear  Jane,  I  think,"  said  my 
mother. 

I  saw  him  wink,  solemnly,  at  his  sister,  as  he  rose  and 
said,  taking  up  the  cane, 

"  Why,  Jane,  we  can  hardly  expect  Clara  to  bear,  with 
perfect  firmness,  the  worry  and  torment  that  David  has 
occasioned  her  to-day.  That  would  be  stoical.  Clara  is 
greatly  strengthened  and  improved,  but  w^e  can  hardly 
expect  so  much  from  her.  David,  you  and  I  will  go  up- 
stairs, boy." 

They  went  upstairs.  David  was  beaten  unmercifully, 
notwithstanding  his  piteous  cries,  and  in  his  desperation 
he  bit  the  hand  of  Murdstone.  For  this  it  seemed  as 
if  Murdstone  would  have  beaten  him  to  death  but  for 
the  interference  of  the  women.  "  Then  he  was  gone,  and 
the  door  locked  outside ;  and  I  was  lying,  fevered  and  hot, 
and  torn,  and  sore,  and  raging  in  my  puny  way,  upon 
the  floor." 

Oh !  Blind,  self-satisfied  ''  child-quellers,"  who  so 
ignorantly  boast  of  your  ability  to  conquer  children! 
Dickens  described  Murdstone  for  you.  Think  of  that 
awful  picture  of  the  beautiful  boy,  created  in  the  image 
of  God,  lying  on  the  floor,  "  fevered  and  hot,  and  torn, 
and  sore,  and  raging,"  with  eveiy  element  of  sweetness 
and  strength  in  his  life  turned  to  darkness  and  fury,  and 
next  time  you  propose  to  "  conquer  a  child "  who  has 
been  rendered  partially  insane,  possibly  by  your  treat- 
ment, and  wdth  whom  you  have  unnecessarily  forced  a 


52  DICKENS  AS  AN  EDUCATOR. 

crisis,  remember  the  Murdstone  tragedy — a  real  tragedy, 
notwithstanding  the  fact  that  the  boy's  life  was  spared. 

Remember,  too,  that  your  very  presence  and  manner 
may  blight  the  young  lives  that  you  are  supposed  to 
develop. 

When  Mr.  Murdstone  was  sending  David  away  to  work 
he  gave  him  his  philosophy  of  coercion  as  his  parting 
advice : 

"  David,"  said  Mr.  Murdstone,  "  to  the  young,  this  is  a 
world  for  action;    not  for  moping  and  droning  in." 

— "  As  you  do,"  added  his  sister. 

"  Jane  Murdstone,  leave  it  to  me,  if  you  please.  I  say, 
David,  to  the  young,  this  is  a  world  for  action,  and  not  for 
moping  and  droning  in.  It  is  especially  so  for  a  young  boy 
of  your  disposition,  which  requires  a  great  deal  of  correct- 
ing; and  to  which  no  greater  service  can  be  done  than  to 
force  it  to  conform  to  the  ways  of  the  working  world,  and 
to  bend  it  and  break  it." 

"  For  stubbornness  won't  do  here,"  said  his  sister. 
"  What  it  wants  is  to  be  crushed.  And  crushed  it  must  be. 
Shall  be,  too!" 

First  he  fills  the  boy  as  full  as  possible  of  self-depre- 
Jv.-ciation,  and  then  trains  him  to  expect  that  his  leading 
experiences  in  life  will  consist  of  being  forced  into  sub- 
mission, conforming  to  the  plans  of  others,  bending  to 
authority,  the  breaking  of  his  will,  and  the  crushing  of 
his  interests  and  purposes.  What  a  depressing  outlook  to 
give  a  child! 

John  Willet,  in  Barnaby  Rudge,  is  used  as  a  means 
of  convincing  parents  that  they  should  respect  the  feel- 
ings and  opinions  of  children.  No  two  maxims  relating 
to  child  training  are  more  utterly  wrong  in  principle, 
more  devoid  of  the  simplest  elements  of  child  sympathy 
and  child  reverence,  than  the  time-honoured  nonsense  that 
"  children  should  be  seen  and  not  heard,"  and  "  children 
should  speak  only  when  they  are  spoken  to." 

Dickens  exposes  these  maxims  to  deserved  ridicule  in 
John  Willet's  treatment  of  his  son  Joe.  John  kept  the 
Maypole  Tnn.  Joe  was  a  fine,  sturdy  young  man.  but  his 
father  still  ruled  him  with  an  unbending  stubbornness 


THE   OVERTHROW  OF   COERCION.  53 

that  he  believed  to  be  a  necessarj'  exercise  of  authority. 
John  was  encouraged  in  his  tyranny  over  his  son  by 
some  of  his  old  cronies,  who  were  in  the  habit  of  sitting 
in  the  Maypole  in  the  evenings  and  praising  John  for 
his  firmness  in  training  his  son.  One  evening  a  stranger 
made  a  remark  about  a  gentleman,  to  which  Joe 
replied. 

"  Silence,  sir!"  cried  his  father. 

"  What  a  chap  you  are,  Joel"  said  Long  Parkes. 

"Such  a  inconsiderate  lad  I"  murmured  Tom  Cobb. 

"  Putting  himself  forward  and  wringing  the  very  nose 
off  his  own  father's  facel"  exclaimed  the  parish  clerk 
metaphorically. 

"  What  liare  I  done?  "  reasoned  poor  Joe. 

"Silence,  sir!"  returned  his  father;  "what  do  you 
mean  by  talking,  when  you  see  people  that  are  more  than 
two  or  three  times  your  age  sitting  still  and  silent  and  not 
dreaming  of  saying  a  word?  " 

"  Why  that's  the  proper  time  for  me  to  talk,  isn't  it?  " 
said  Joe  rebelliously. 

"The  proper  time,  sir!"  retorted  his  father,  "the 
proper  time's  no  time." 

"Ah,  to  be  sure  I"  muttered  Parkes,  nodding  gravely 
to  the  other  two  who  nodded  likewise,  observing  under 
their  breaths  that  that  was  the  point. 

"  The  proper  time's  no  time,  sir,"  repeated  John  Wil- 
let;  "  when  I  was  your  age  I  never  talked,  I  never  wanted 
to  talk.  I  listened  and  improved  myself,  that's  what  / 
did." 

"  It's  all  very  fine  talking,"  muttered  Joe,  who  had 
been  fidgeting  in  his  chair  with  divers  uneasy  gestures. 
"  But  if  you  mean  to  tell  me  that  I'm  never  to  open  mv 
lips " 

"Silence,  sir  I"  roared  his  father.  "  Xo,  you  never  are. 
When  your  opinion's  wanted,  you  give  it.  When  you're 
spoke  to  you  speak.  When  your  opinion's  not  wanted  and 
you're  not  spoke  to,  don't  give  an  opinion  and  don't  you 
speak.  The  world's  undergone  a  nice  alteration  since  my 
time,  certainly.  My  belief  is  that  there  an't  any  boys  left 
— that  there  isn't  such  a  thing  as  a  boy — that  there's  noth- 
ing now  between  a  male  baby  and  a  man — and  that  all 
the  boys  went  out  with  his  blessed  majesty  King  George 
the  Second." 
5 


54  DICKENS   AS   AN  EDUCATOR. 

On  another  occasion  Joe  had  been  hit  with  a  whip  by 
a  stranger,  and  he  expressed  his  opinion  to  Mr.  Varden 
about  the  character  of  the  man  who  hit  him. 

"  Hold  your  tongue,  sir,"  said  his  father. 

"  I  won't,  father.  It's  all  along  of  you  that  he  ventured 
to  do  what  he  did.  Seeing  me  treated  like  a  child,  and  put 
down  like  a  fool,  he  plucks  up  a  heart  and  has  a  fling  at  a 
fellow  that  he  thinks — and  may  well  think,  too — hasn't  a 
grain  of  spirit.  But  he's  mistaken,  as  I'll  show  him,  and  as 
I'll  show  all  of  you  before  long." 

"Does  the  boy  know  what  he's  saying  of!"  cried  the 
astonished  John  Willet. 

"  Father,"  returned  Joe,  "  I  know  what  I  say  and  mean, 
well — better  than  you  do  when  you  hear  me.  I  can  bear 
with  you,  but  I  can  not  bear  the  contempt  that  your  treat- 
ing me  in  the  way  you  do  brings  upon  me  from  others 
every  day.  Look  at  other  young  men  of  my  age.  Have 
they  no  liberty,  no  will,  no  right  to  speak?  Are  they  ob- 
liged to  sit  mumchance,  and  to  be  ordered  about  till  they 
are  the  laughingstock  of  young  and  old?  I  am  a  byword 
all  over  Chigwell,  and  I  say — and  it's  fairer  my  saying  so 
now,  than  waiting  till  you  are  dead,  and  I  have  got  your 
money — I  say,  that  before  long  I  shall  be  driven  to  break 
such  bounds,  and  that  when  I  do,  it  won't  be  me  that  you'll 
have  to  blame,  but  your  own  self,  and  no  other." 

John  never  trusted  his  son,  never  entered  into  his 
plans,  and  treated  even  the  most  sacred  things  of  Joe's 
life  with  contempt. 

Joe  was  about  to  start  to  London  on  business  for  his 
father,  and  he  was  to  ride  a  mare  that  was  so  slow  that 
a  young  man  could  not  enjoy  the  prospect  of  riding  her. 

"  Don't  you  ride  hard,"  said  his  father. 

"  I  should  be  puzzled  to  do  that,  I  think,  father,"  Joe 
replied,  casting  a  disconsolate  look  at  the  animal. 

"  None  of  your  impudence,  sir,  if  you  please,"  retorted 
old  John.  "  What  would  you  ride,  sir?  A  wild  ass  or 
zebra  would  be  too  tame  for  you,  wouldn't  he,  eh,  sir? 
You'd  like  to  ride  a  roaring  lion,  wouldn't  you,  sir,  eh,  sir? 
Hold  your  tongue,  sir."  When  Mr.  Willet,  in  his  differ- 
ences with  his  son,  had  exhausted  all  the  questions  that 
occurred  to  him,  and  Joe  had  said  nothing  at  all  in  answer, 
he  generally  wound  up  by  bidding  him  hold  his  tongue. 


THE   OVERTHROW   OF   COERCION.  55 

"  And  what  does  the  boy  mean."  added  Mr.  Willet,  after 
he  had  stared  at  him  for  a  little  time,  in  a  species  of  stupe- 
faction, "by  cocking  his  hat,  to  such  an  extent!  Are  you 
going"  to  kill  the  wintner,  sir?  " 

"  Xo,"  said  Joe  tartly;  "  I'm  not.  Now  3'our  mind's  at 
ease,  father." 

"With  a  military  air,  tool"  said  Mr.  Willet,  surveying 
him  from  top  to  toe;  "  with  a  swaggering,  fire-eating,  bil- 
ing-water  drinking  sort  of  way  with  him!  And  what  do 
you  mean  by  pulling  up  the  crocuses  and  snowdrops,  eh, 
sir?  " 

"  It's  only  a  little  nosegaj',"  said  Joe,  reddening. 
"  There's  no  harm  in  that,  I  hope?  " 

"You're  a  boy  of  business,  you  are,  sir!"  said  Mr. 
Willet  disdainfully,  "  to  go  supposing  that  w^ntners  care 
for  nosegays." 

"  I  don't  suppose  anything  of  the  kind,"  returned  Joe. 
"  Let  them  keep  their  red  noses  for  bottles  and  tankards. 
These  are  going  to  Mr.  Yarden's  house." 

"  And  do  you  suppose  he  minds  such  things  as  cro- 
cuses? "  demanded  John. 

"  I  don't  know,  and  to  say  the  truth,  I  don't  care,"  said 
Joe.  "  Come,  father,  give  me  the  money,  and  in  the  name 
of  patience  let  me  go." 

"  There  it  is,  sir,"  replied  John;  "and  take  care  of  it; 
and  mind  you  don't  make  too  much  haste  back,  but  give 
the  mare  a  long  rest.     Do  you  mind?  " 

"  Ay,  I  mind,"  returned  Joe.  "  She'll  need  it,  Heaven 
knows." 

"  And  don't  you  score  up  too  much  at  the  Black  Lion," 
said  John.     "  Mind  that  too." 

"  Then  why  don't  you  let  me  have  some  money  of  my 
own?  "  retorted  Joe  sorrowfully;  "why  don't  you,  father? 
What  do  you  send  me  into  London  for,  giving  me  only 
the  right  to  call  for  my  dinner  at  the  Black  Lion,  which 
you're  to  pay  for  next  time  you  go,  as  if  I  was  not  to  be 
trusted  with  a  few  shillings?  Why  do  you  use  me  like 
this?  It's  not  right  of  you.  You  can't  expect  me  to  be 
quiet  under  it." 

Dickens  in  this  interview  condemns  several  mistakes 
often  made  by  parents  in  restraining  instead  of  sympa- 
thizing Tvith  their  children  in  the  natural  unfolding  of 
their  young  manhood  or  •womanhood.     It  was  wrong  for 


56  DICKENS  AS  AN   EDUCATOR. 

John  Willet  to  ridicule  Joe's  desire  to  ride  a  smart  horse. 
It  was  wrong  to  bid  him  "  hold  his  tongue."  It  was 
wrong  to  criticise  his  method  of  dressing  to  look  his  very 
best.  It  was  wrong  to  sneer  at  him  because  his  conscious- 
ness of  unfolding  manhood  and  his  hope  of  Dolly  Var- 
■den's  love  made  him  carry  himself  with  a  "  military  air." 
What  a  difference  it  would  make  in  the  characters  of 
young  men  if  they  all  carried  themselves  with  a  military 
air,  and  walked  with  a  consciousness  of  power  and  hope! 

It  was  especially  wrong  to  make  fun  of  the  nosegay 
Joe  had  pulled  for  Dolly  Varden.  What  a  pity  it  is  that 
so  few  fathers  or  mothers  can  truly  sympathize  with  their 
boys  and  girls  during  the  period  of  courtship!  Why 
should  the  most  sacred  feelings  that  ever  stir  the  soul  be 
made  the  subject  of  jest  and  levity  by  those  whose  hearts 
should  most  truly  beat  in  unison  with  the  young  hearts 
that  are  aflame?  If  there  is  a  time  in  the  life  of  young 
men  or  women  when  father  or  mother  may  enter  the 
hearts  of  their  children  as  benedictions  and  form  a  blessed 
unity  that  can  never  be  broken  or  undone  it  is  surely 
when  young  hearts  are  hallowed  by  love.  Yet  there  are 
few  parents  to  whom  their  children  can  speak  freely  about 
the  mysteries  and  the  deep  experiences  of  love  that  come 
into  their  lives. 

It  was  wrong  to  treat  Joe  as  if  he  was  unworthy  to  be 
trusted  with  money. 

Every  wrong  revealed  by  Dickens  in  this  interview 
had  its  root  in  John's  feeling  that  it  was  his  duty  to  keep 
Joe  down,  to  prevent  the  outflow  of  his  inner  life. 

Old  John  having  long  encroached  a  good  standard  inch, 
full  measure,  on  the  liberty  of  Joe,  and  having  snipped  off 
a  Flemish  ell  in  the  matter  of  the  parole,  grew  so  despotic 
and  so  great,  that  his  thirst  for  conquest  knew  no  bounds. 
The  more  young  Joe  submitted,  the  more  absolute  old 
John  became.  The  ell  soon  faded  into  nothing.  Yards, 
furlongs,  miles  arose;  and  on  went  old  John  in  the  pleas- 
antest  manner  possible,  trimming  off  an  exuberance  in  this 
place,  shearing  away  some  liberty  of  speech  or  action  in 
that,  and  conducting  himself  in  this  small  way  with  as 
much  high  mightiness  and  majesty  as  the  most  glorious 


THE   OVERTHROW   OF   COERCION.  57 

tyrant  that  ever  had  his  statue  reared  in  the  public  ways, 
of  ancient  or  of  modern  times. 

As  great  men  are  urged  on  to  the  abuse  of  power  (when 
they  need  urging,  which  is  not  often)  by  their  flatterers 
and  dependents,  so  old  John  was  impelled  to  these  exer- 
cises of  authority  by  the  applause  and  admiration  of  his 
^Slaypole  cronies,  wlio,  in  ilie  intervals  01  their  nightly 
pipes  and  pots,  would  shake  their  heads  and  say  that  Mr. 
Willet  was  a  father  of  the  good  old  English  sort;  that 
there  were  no  newfangled  notions  or  modern  ways  in  him; 
that  he  put  them  in  mind  of  what  their  fathers  were  when 
thej-  were  boys;  that  there  was  no  mistake  about  him;  ihat 
it  would  be  well  for  the  country  if  there  were  more  like 
him,  and  more  was  the  jiity  that  there  were  not;  with  many 
other  original  remarks  of  that  nature.  Then  they  would 
condescendingly  give  Joe  to  understand  that  it  was  all  for 
his  good,  and  he  would  be  thankful  for  it  one  daj-;  and  in 
particular,  ]\lr.  Cobb  would  acquaint  him,  that  when  he  wa& 
his  age,  his  father  thought  no  more  of  giving  him  a  paren- 
tal kick,  or  a  box  on  the  ears,  or  a  cuff  on  the  head,  or 
some  little  admonition  of  that  sort,  than  he  did  of  any 
other  ordinary  duty  of  life;  and  he  would  further  remark, 
with  looks  of  great  significance,  that  but  for  this  judicious 
bringing  up,  he  might  ha^e  never  been  the  man  he  v.  i's  at 
that  present  speaking;  which  was  probable  enough,  as  he 
was,  beyond  all  question,  the  dullest  dog  of  the  partj".  In 
short,  between  old  John  and  old  John's  friends,  there  never 
was  an  unfortunate  young  fellow  so  bullied,  badgered,  wor- 
ried, fretted,  and  browbeaten;  so  constantly  beset,  or  made 
so  tired  of  his  life,  as  poor  Joe  Willet. 

The  end  came  at  last.  One  evening  Mr.  Cobb  was 
more  aggravating  than  usual,  and  Joe's  patience  could 
hold  out  no  longer.  He  knocked  the  offending  Cobb  into 
a  corner  among  the  spittoons,  and  ran  away  from  the 
unbearable  tyranny  of  home. 

What  a  moral  catastrophe  occurs  when  a  young  man 
leaves  home  with  a  feeling  of  relief !  Dickens  develops 
this  thought  in  the  case  of  Tom  Gradgrind.  With  the 
best  of  intentions,  with  a  single  desire  of  training  his 
son  in  the  best  possible  way,  Mr.  Gradgrind  had  repressed 
his  natural  tendencies  and  robbed  him  of  the  joys  of 
childhood  and  youth  to  such  an  extent  that  when  he  was 


58  UIUKENS  AS  AN  EDUCATOR. 

about  to  go  to  live  with  Mr.  Bounderby,  and  his  sister, 
Louisa,  asked  him  "  if  he  was  pleased  with  his  prospect  ? " 
he  replied,  "  Well,  it  will  be  getting  away  from  home." 
The  boy  is  never  to  blame  for  such  a  catastrophe. 

Dickens  attacked  another  phase  of  the  flogging  mania 
in  Barnaby  Rudge,  in  a  brief  but  suggestive  scene.  Bar- 
naby  and  his  mother  were  travelling,  and  were  resting  at 
the  gate  of  a  gentleman's  grounds,  when  the  proprietor 
himself  came  along  and  demanded  to  know  who  they  were. 

"  Vagrants,"  said  the  gentleman,  "  vagrants  and  vaga- 
bonds. Tliee  wish  to  be  made  acquainted  with  the  cage, 
dost  thee — the  cage,  the  stocks,  and  the  whipping  post? 
Where  dost  come  from?  " 

Learning  that  Barnaby  was  weak-minded,  he  asked 
how  long  he  had  been  idiotic. 

"  From  his  birth,"  said  the  widow. 

"  I  don't  believe  it,"  cried  the  gentleman,  "  not  a  bit  of 
it.  It's  an  excuse  not  to  work.  There's  nothing  like  flog- 
ging to  cure  that  disorder.  I'd  make  a  difference  in  him 
in  ten  minutes,  I'll  be  bound." 

"  Heaven  has  made  none  in  more  than  twice  ten  years, 
sir,"  said  the  widow  mildly. 

"  Then  why  don't  you  shut  him  up?  We  pay  enough 
for  county  institutions,  damn  'em.  But  thou'd  rather  drag 
him  about  to  excite  charity — of  course.     Ay,  I  know  thee." 

Now,  this  gentleman  had  various  endearing  appella- 
tions among  his  intimate  friends.  By  some  he  was  called 
"  a  country  gentleman  of  the  true  school,"  by  some  "  a 
fine  old  country  gentleman,"  by  some  "  a  sporting  gentle- 
man," by  some  "  a  thoroughbred  Englishman,"  by  some 
"  a  genuine  John  Bull  ";  but  they  all  agreed  in  one  respect, 
and  that  was,  that  it  was  a  pity  that  there  were  not  more 
like  him,  and  that  because  there  were  not,  the  country 
was  going  to  rack  and  ruin  every  day. 

Dickens  always  enjoyed  ridiculing  the  people  who  long 
for  the  good  old  times  and  approve  of  the  good  old  cus- 
toms. There  are  some  who  even  yet  deplore  the  fact  that 
children  are  not  repressed  and  coerced  as  they  used  to  be, 
and  who  prophesy  untold  evils  unless  the  good  old  customs 


THE   OVERTHROW   OF   COERCION.  59 

are  re-established.  They  long  for  the  recurrence  of  the 
days  when  "  lickin'  and  larnin'  "went  hand  in  hand,"  when 
"  Wallop  the  boy,  develop  the  man "  was  the  popular 
motto,  expressive  of  the  general  faith.  Dickens  pictured 
them  in  John  Willet  and  this  *'  country  gentleman  of 
the  true  school."  He  also  criticised  them  severely  in  the 
Chimes. 

The  depressing  influence  of  another  form  of  coercion 
is  shown  in  Our  Mutual  Friend  by  the  effect  of  Mr.  Pod- 
snap's  character  on  his  daughter  Georgiana.  Mr.  Pod- 
snap  was  one  of  the  absolutely  positive  people  who  know 
everything  about  everything,  who  never  allow  other  peo- 
ple to  express  opinions  without  contradicting  them,  and 
who  take  every  possible  opportunity  of  expressing  their 
own  opinions  in  a  loud,  emphatic,  dogmatic  manner.  Of 
course,  no  woman  should  hold  opinions,  according  to  Mr. 
Podsnap's  way  of  thinking,  although  Mrs.  Podsnap,  in 
her  own  way,  did  credit  to  her  more  Podsnappery  master. 
It  was  therefore  not  to  be  dreamt  of  for  a  moment  that 
a  "  young  person "  like  their  daughter  Georgiana  could 
have  any  views  of  her  own  regarding  life  or  any  of  its 
conditions,  past,  present,  or  future.  She  was  a  "  young 
person  "  to  be  protected,  and  kept  in  the  background,  and 
guarded  from  evil,  and  sheltered,  so  that  she  should 
not  even  hear  of  anything  improper,  and  shielded  from 
temptation  to  do  wrong,  or  to  do  anything,  indeed,  right 
or  wrong.  Her  father  was  rich;  why  should  she  wish  to 
do  anything  but  listen  to  him,  and  go  away  when  he  told 
her  to  do  so,  if  he  wished  to  speak  of  subjects  that  he 
deemed  it  unwise  to  let  a  "  young  person  "  hear  discussed? 

There  was  a  Miss  Podsnap.  And  this  young  rocking- 
horse  was  being  trained  in  her  mother's  art  of  prancing  in 
a  stately  manner  without  ever  getting  on.  But  the  liigh 
parental  action  was  not  yet  imparted  to  her,  and  in  truth 
she  was  but  an  undersized  damsel,  with  high  shoulders, 
low  spirits,  chilled  elbows,  and  a  rasped  surface  of  nose, 
who  seemed  to  take  occasional  frosty  peeps  out  of  child- 
hood into  womanhood,  and  to  shrink  back  again,  overcome 
by  her  mother's  headdress  and  her  father  from  head  to 
foot — crushed  by  the  mere  dead  weight  of  Podsnappery. 


60  DICKENS  AS  AN  EDUCATOR. 

Georgiana  explained  the  reason  of  her  shyness  to  Mrs. 
Lanunle,  for,  strange  as  it  may  seem,  considering  her 
heredity,  Georgiana  was  shy.  Podsnappery  as  environ- 
ment is  always  much  stronger  than  Podsnappery  as 
heredity. 

"  What  I  mean  is,"  pursued  Georgiana,  "  that  ma  being 
so  endowed  with  awfulness,  and  pa  being  so  endowed  with 
awfulness,  and  there  being  so  much  awfulness  everywhere 
— I  mean,  at  least,  everywhere  where  I  am — perhaps  it 
makes  me  who  am  so  deficient  in  awfulness,  and  frightened 
at  it — I  say  it  very  badly — I  don't  know  whether  you  can 
understand  what  I  mean?  " 

Thoughtful  people  need  no  explanation  regarding  the 
influence  of  Podsnappery  on  children. 

The  time  will  come  when  in  normal  schools  character 
analysis  will  be  the  supreme  qualification  of  those  who 
are  to  decide  who  may  and  who  may  not  teach.  When 
that  time  comes,  as  come  it  must,  no  Podsnaps  will  be 
allowed  to  teach. 

It  was  no  wonder  that — 

Whenever  Georgiana  could  escape  from  the  thraldom  of 
Podsnappery;  could  throw  off  the  bedclothes  of  the  cus- 
tard-coloured phaeton,  and  get  up;  could  shrink  out  of  the 
range  of  her  mother's  rocking,  and  (so  to  speak)  rescue 
her  poor  little  frosty  toes  from  being  rocked  over;  she 
repaired  to  her  friend,  Mrs.  Alfred  Lammle. 

Dickens  fired  another  thunderbolt,  in  Our  Mutual 
Priend,  to  set  the  world  thinking  about  its  method  of 
teaching  children,  by  his  brief  description  of  Pleasant 
Riderhood,  the  daughter  of  Rogue  Piderhood. 

Show  her  a  christening,  and  she  saw  a  little  heathen 
personage  having  a  quite  superfluous  name  bestowed  upon 
it,  inasmuch  as  it  would  be  commonly  addressed  by  some 
abusive  epithet;  which  little  personage  was  not  in  the 
least  wanted  by  anybody,  and  would  be  shoved  and  banged 
out  of  everybody's  way,  until  it  should  grow  big  enough  to 
shove  and  bang.  Show  her  a  live  father,  and  she  saw  but 
a  duplicate  of  her  own  father,  who  from  her  infancy  had 


THE   OVERTHROW   OF   COERCION.  61 

been  taken  with  fits  and  starts  of  discharging-  his  duty  to 
her,  which  duty  was  always  incorporated  in  the  form  of  a 
fist  or  a  leather  strap,  and  being  discharged  hurt  her. 

In  Little  Dorrit  Dickens  gives  one  of  his  most  strik- 
ing verbal  descriptions  of  the  effects  of  coercion  in  Ar- 
thur Clennam's  account  of  liis  own  early  training.  He 
said  to  Mr.  Meagles,  when  the  kind  old  gentleman  spoke 
of  working  with  a  will : 

"  I  have  no  will.  That  is  to  say,"  he  coloured  a  little, 
"  next  to  none  that  I  can  put  in  action  now.  Trained  by 
main  force;  broken,  not  bent;  heavily  ironed  with  an  ob- 
ject on  which  I  was  never  consulted  and  which  was  never 
mine;  shipped  away  to  the  other  end  of  the  world  before  I 
was  of  age,  and  exiled  there  until  my  father's  death  there, 
a  year  ago;  always  grinding  in  a  mill  I  always  hated; 
what  is  to  be  expected  from  me  in  middle  life?  Will,  pur- 
pose, hope?  All  those  lights  were  extinguished  before  I 
could  sound  the  words." 

"Light  'em  up  again  I"  said  Mr.  Meagles. 

"Ah!  Easily  said.  I  am  the  son,  Mr.  Meagles,  of  a 
hard  father  and  mother.  I  am  the  only  child  of  parents 
who  weighed,  measured,  and  priced  everything;  for  whom 
what  could  not  be  weighed,  measured,  and  priced  had  no 
existence.  Strict  people,  as  the  phrase  is,  professors  of  a 
stern  religion,  their  very  religion  was  a  gloomy  sacrifice  of 
tastes  and  sympathies  that  were  never  their  own,  offered 
up  as  a  part  of  a  barg-ain  for  the  security  of  their  posses- 
sions. Austere  faces,  inexorable  discipline,  penance  in  this 
world  and  terror  in  the  next — nothing  graceful  or  gentle 
anywhere,  and  the  void  in  my  cowed  heart  everywhere — 
this  was  my  childhood,  if  I  may  so  misuse  the  word  as  to 
apply  it  to  such  a  beginning  of  life." 

When  he  returned  to  the  presence  of  his  mother,  after 
an  absence  of  many  years  in  China,  "  the  old  influence 
of  her  presence,  and  her  stem,  strong  voice,  so  gathered 
about  her  son  that  he  felt  conscious  of  a  renewal  of  the 
timid  chill  and  reserve  of  his  childhood." 

It  was  a  terrible  indictment  of  all  coercive,  child-quell- 
ing, will-breaking  training  that  Arthur  made  when  he 
said  to  his  stem  mother: 


62  DICKENS   AS  AN   EDUCATOR. 

"  I  can  not  say  that  I  have  been  able  to  conform  myself, 
in  heart  and  spirit,  to  your  rules;  I  can  not  saj^  that  1  be- 
lieve my  forty  years  have  been  profitable  or  pleasant  to 
myself,  or  any  one;  but  1  have  habitually  submitted,  and  I 
only  ask  you  to  remember  it." 

Speaking  of  her  own  training,  Mrs.  Clennam  said: 
"  Mine  were  days  of  wholesome  repression,  punishment, 
and  fear,"  and  she  frankly  avowed  her  deliberate  purpose 
of  "  bringing  xYrthur  up  in  fear  and  trembling." 

Those  were  the  dreadful  ideals  that  iJickens  aimed  to 
destroy.  Repression,  punishment,  fear,  and  trembling  are 
no  longer  the  dominant  ideals  of  the  Christian  world  re- 
garding child  training.  They  are  rapidly  giving  way 
to  the  new  and  true  gospel  of  stimulation,  happiness,  free- 
dom, and  creative  self-activity. 

Great  Expectations  was  a  valuable  contribution  to  the 
literature  of  child  training.  Mrs.  Gargery  was  a  type  of 
repressive,  coercive,  unsympathetic  women,  who  regard 
children  as  necessarily  nuisances,  and  who  are  continually 
thankful  for  the  fact  that  by  the  free  use  of  "  the 
tickler "  they  may  be  subdued  and  kept  in  a  state  of 
bearable  subjection. 

Mrs.  Gargery  had  no  children  of  her  own,  but  she  had 
a  little  brother,  Pip,  whom  she  "  brought  up  by  hand." 
Her  husband,  Joe  Gargery,  was  an  honest,  affectionate, 
sympathetic  man,  w^ho  pitied  poor  Pip  and  tried  to  com- 
fort him  when  his  w^ife  was  not  present.  The  dear  old 
fellow  said  to  Pip  one  evening,  as  they  sat  by  the  fire  and 
he  beat  time  to  his  kindly  thoughts  with  the  poker: 

"  Your  sister  is  given  to  government." 

"  Given  to  government,  Joe?  "  I  was  startled,  for  I  had 
some  shadowy  idea  (and  I  am  afraid  I  must  add  hope)  that 
Joe  had  divorced  her  in  favour  of  the  lords  of  the  Admiral- 
ty, or  Treasury. 

"  Given  to  government,"  said  Joe.  "  Which  I  meanter- 
say  the  government  of  you  and  mj^self." 

"Oh!  " 

"  And  she  ain't  over  partial  to  having  scholars  on  the 
premises,"  Joe  continued,  "  and  in  particular  would  not  be 


THE  OVERTHROW  OF  COERCION.  63 

over  partial  to  my  being  a  scholar,  for  fear  as  I  might  rise. 
Like  a  sort  of  rebel,  don't  you  see?  " 

I  was  going  to  retort  with  an  inquiry,  and  had  got  as 
far  as  "  Why "  when  Joe  stopped  me. 

"  Stay  a  bit.  I  know  what  you're  a-going  to  say,  Pip? 
stay  a  bit!  I  don't  deny  that  your  sister  comes  the  mo-gul 
over  us,  now  and  again.  I  don't  deny  that  she  do  throw 
us  back-falls,  and  that  she  do  drop  down  upon  us  heavy. 
At  such  times  as  when  your  sister  is  on  the  ram-page,  Pip," 
Joe  sunk  his  voice  to  a  whisper  and  glanced  at  the  door, 
"  candour  compels  fur  to  admit  that  she  is  a  buster.   .   .   . 

"I  wish  it  was  only  me  that  got  put  out,  Pip;  I  wish 
there  warn't  no  tickler  for  you,  old  chap;  I  wish  I  could 
take  it  all  on  myself;  but  this  is  the  up-and-down-and- 
straight  on  it,  Pip,  and  I  hope  you'll  overlook  short- 
comings." 

Poor  Joe!  His  father  had  been  a  blacksmith,  but 
he  took  to  drink,  and,  as  Joe  said,  "  Hammered  at  me 
with  a  wigour  only  to  be  equalled  by  the  wigour  with 
which  he  didn't  hammer  at  his  anwil." 

Dickens  gives  an  illustration  of  Mrs.  Gargery's  train- 
ing which  reveals  not  only  her  coercive  and  unsympa- 
thetic tendencies,  but  points  to  other  errors  in  training 
children  that  are  yet  too  common.  Pip  was  warming 
himself  before  going  to  bed  one  night,  when  a  cannon 
sounded  from  the  Hulks,  or  prison  ships,  near  the  Gar- 
gery  home. 

"Ah!  "  said  Joe;    "there's  another  conwict  off." 

"  What  does  that  mean?  "  said  I. 

Mrs.  Joe,  who  always  took  explanations  upon  herself, 
said  snappishly:  "  Escaped.  Escaped."  Administering 
the  definition  like  medicine. 

"  There  was  a  conwict  off  last  night,"  said  Joe,  aloud, 
"  after  sunset  gun.  And  thej^  fired  warning  of  him.  And 
now  it  appears  they're  firing  warning  of  another." 

"  Who's  firing?  "  said  I. 

"  Drat  that  boy,"  interposed  my  sister,  frowning  at  me 
over  her  work;  "what  a  questioner  he  is!  Ask  no  ques- 
tions and  you'll  be  told  no  lies." 

It  was  not  very  polite  to  herself,  I  thought,  to  imply 
that  I  should  be  told  lies  by  her,  even  if  I  did  ask  ques- 


64  DICKENS   AS  AN  EDUCATOR. 

tions.     But  she  never  was  polite,  unless  there  was   com- 
pany. 

"  Mrs.  Joe,"  said  I,  as  a  last  resort,  "  I  should  like  to 
know — if  you  wouldn't  much  mind — where  the  firing- 
comes  from?  " 

"Lord  bless  the  boy!"  exclaimed  my  sister,  as  if  she 
didn't  quite  mean  that,  but  rather  the  contrary.  "  From 
the  hulks!" 

"  And  please,  what's  hulks?  "  said  I. 

"That's  the  way  with  this  boy!"  exclaimed  my  sister, 
pointing  me  out  with  her  needle  and  thread,  and  shaking- 
her  head  at  me.  "  Answer  him  one  question,  and  he'll  ask 
you  a  dozen  directly.  Hulks  are  prison  ships,  right  'cross 
th'  country." 

"  I  wonder  who's  put  into  prison  ships,  and  why  they're 
put  there?  "  said  I,  in  a  general  way,  and  with  quiet  des- 
peration. 

It  was  too  much  for  Mrs.  Joe,  who  immediately  rose. 
"  I  tell  you  what,  young  fellow,"  said  she,  "  I  didn't  bring 
you  up  by  hand  to  badger  people's  lives  out.  It  would  be 
blame  to  me,  and  not  praise,  if  I  had.  People  are  put  in 
the  hulks  because  they  murder,  and  because  they  rob,  and 
forge,  and  do  all  sorts  of  bad;  and  they  always  begin  by 
asking  questions.     Now,  you  get  along  to  bed!  " 

I  was  never  allowed  a  candle  to  light  me  to  bed,  and,  as 
I  went  upstairs  in  the  dark,  with  my  head  tingling — from 
Mrs.  Joe's  thimble  having  played  the  tambourine  upon  it, 
to  accompany  her  last  words — I  felt  fearfully  sensible  of 
the  great  convenience  that  the  hulks  were  handy  for  me. 
I  was  clearly  on  my  way  there. 

Pip  said  later:  "  I  suppose  myself  to  be  better  ac- 
quainted than  any  living  authority  with  the  ridgy  effect 
of  a  wedding  ring  passing  unsympathetically  over  the  hu- 
man countenance." 

My  sister's  bringing  up  had  made  me  sensitive.  In  the 
little  world  in  which  children  have  their  existence,  whoso- 
ever brings  them  up,  there  is  nothing  so  finely  perceived 
and  so  finely  felt  as  injustice.  It  may  be  only  small  in- 
justice that  the  child  can  be  exposed  to;  but  the  child  is 
small,  and  its  world  is  small,  and  its  rocking-horse  stands 
as  many  hands  high,  according  to  scale,  as  a  big-boned 
Irish  hunter.  Within  myself,  I  had  sustained,  from  my 
babyhood,  a  perpetual  conflict  with  injustice.  I  had 
known,  from  the  time  when  I  could  speak,  that  my  sister. 


THE   OVERTHROW   OF   COERCION.  65 

in  her  capricious  and  violent  coercion,  was  unjust  to  me. 
I  had  cherished  a  profound  conviction  that  her  bringing 
me  up  by  the  hand  gave  her  no  right  to  bring  me  up  by 
jerks.  Through  all  my  punishments,  disgraces,  fasts  and 
vigils,  and  other  penitential  performances,  I  had  nursed 
this  assurance;  and  to  my  communing  so  much  with  it,  in 
a  solitary  and  unprotected  way,  I  in  great  part  refer  the 
fact  that  I  was  morally  timid  and  very  sensitive. 

Mrs.  Gargery's  training  was  bad  because  she  refused 
to  answer  the  boy's  questions,  or  abused  him  for  asking 
them;  and  when  she  did  condescend  to  answer  she  an- 
swered in  a  snappy,  unsympathetic  way.  The  cruelty  of 
first  scolding  a  child,  then  trjdng  to  terrify  him  from 
asking  questions  by  telling  him  that  "  robbers,  murderers, 
and  all  kinds  of  criminals  began  their  downward  career 
by  asking  questions,''  then  rapping  him  on  the  head,  and 
finally  sending  him  to  bed  without  a  light,  is  admirably 
described.  All  these  practices  are  terribly  unjust  to  chil- 
dren. Parents  and  teachers,  in  the  picture  of  Mrs.  Gar- 
gery,  are  warned  against  scolding,  against  threatening, 
against  falsehood  and  misrepresentation  in  order  to  re- 
duce children  to  submission,  against  corporal  punishment 
with  "  the  tickler,"  against  the  more  dastardlj-  and  more 
exasperating  corporal  punishment  by  snapping  and  rap- 
ping the  head,  and  against  sending  children  to  bed  in 
the  dark.  He  was  especially  careful  to  make  the  retiring 
hour  in  his  o^vn  home  a  period  of  joyousness  and  freedom 
from  all  fear.  He  made  the  crime  of  sending  children 
to  bed  without  light  and  without  sjTnpathy  one  of  the 
practices  of  that  model  of  bad  training — Mrs.  Pipchin; 
and  one  of  the  most  dreaded  of  little  Oliver  Twist's 
experiences  was  to  be  sent  to  sleep  among  the  cofiins  in 
the  dark  at  Sowerberry's. 

The  hour  of  retiring  is  the  special  time  when  children 
most  need  the  affectionate  spirit  of  motherhood,  and  wise 
mothers  try  to  use  this  sacred  hour  to  form  their  closest 
unity  with  the  hearts  of  the  little  ones,  and  to  sow  in 
their  young  lives  the  apperceptive  seeds  of  sweetness,  and 
joy,  and  faith. 

The  wrong   of  making  children  sensitive,   and  then 


66  DICKENS  AS  AN  EDUCATOR. 

blaming  them  for  being  sensitive,  is  admirably  shown  in 
Pip's  training. 

The  revelation  of  the  child's  consciousness  of  the 
sense  of  injustice  in  the  treatment  of  those  who  train 
it  is  worthy  of  most  careful  study  and  thought  by  parents 
and  teachers.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  infants  have  a 
clear  sense  of  wrongs  inflicted  on  them,  even  before  they 
can  speak. 

The  comparison  of  the  child's  rocking-horse  with  the 
big-boned  Irish  hunter  reveals  one  of  the  most  essential 
lessons  for  adulthood :  that  what  may  appear  trifling  to  an 
adult  may  mean  much  to  a  child.  Kind  but  thought- 
less adulthood  is  often  most  grievously  unjust  to  child- 
hood, because  it  fails  to  consider  how  things  appear 
to  the  child.  However  kind  and  good  such  adults  are, 
they  are  utterly  unsympathetic  with  the  child.  Many 
people  are  very  considerate  for  childhood  who  are  very 
unsympathetic  with  children.  Consideration  can  never 
take  the  place  of  sympathy.  An  ounce  of  true  sympathy 
is  worth  a  ton  of  consideration  to  a  child.  Adulthood 
has  measured  a  child's  corn  in  the  bushel  of  adulthood. 
Mr.  Gradgrind,  for  instance,  was  a  good  man,  and  he 
meant  to  be  kind  and  helpful  to  his  children.  He  was 
most  considerate  for  them,  and  spared  no  money  to  pro- 
mote their  welfare  and  happiness.  But  he  did  it  in  ac- 
cordance with  the  tastes  and  opinions  of  adulthood,  and 
totally  ignored  the  fact  that  children  have  opinions  and 
tastes,  and  he  ruined  the  children  whom  he  most  loved. 
"  The  rocking-horse  and  the  big-boned  Irish  hunter  "  sug- 
gest rich  mines  of  child  psychology. 

The  pernicious  habit  of  so  many  adults  who  fill  the 
imaginations  of  children  with  bogies  and  terrors  of  an 
abnormal  kind  in  order  to  keep  them  in  the  path  of  recti- 
tude by  falsehood,  is  exposed  in  Mrs.  Gargery's  method 
of  stopping  Pip's  questions  by  telling  him  that  asking 
questions  was  the  first  step  in  a  career  of  crime.  This 
habit  leads  parents  insensibly  into  a  most  dishonest  atti- 
tude toward  their  children.  It  leads,  too,  in  due  time, 
to  a  lack  of  reverence  for  adulthood.  Falseness  is  certain 
to  lead  to  the  disrespect  it  deserves.     Parents  who  make 


THE   OVERTHROW   OF   COERCION.  67 

untruthfulness  a  basis  for  terror  should  not  be  surprised 
at  the  irreverence  or  the  scepticism  of  their  children. 

In  The  Schoolboy's  Story,  old  Cheeseman  was  brought 
to  school  by  a  woman  who  was  always  taking  snuff  and 
shaking  him. 

There  is  a  great  deal  of  pedagogical  thought  in  Dom- 
bey  and  Son.  At  the  period  of  its  issue  (1840—18)  Dick- 
ens appears  to  have  devoted  more  attention  to  the  study  of 
wrong  methods  of  teaching  than  at  any  other  time,  so  in 
Dr.  Blimber,  Cornelia  Blimber,  and  Mr.  Feeder  he  gave  his 
best  illustrations  of  what  in  his  opinion  should  be  con- 
demned in  the  popular  methods  of  teaching.  But  while 
this  was  evidently  his  chief  educational  purpose  in  writing 
the  book,  he  gave  a  good  deal  of  attention  to  wrong  meth- 
ods of  training,  especially  to  the  most  awful  doctrine  of 
the  ages — that  children  must  be  coerced,  and  repressed, 
and  checked,  and  subdued.  He  evidently  accepted  as  his 
supreme  duty  the  responsibility  for  securing  a  free  child- 
hood for  children.  Mrs.  Pipchin  is  an  admirable  deline- 
ation of  the  worst  features  of  what  was  regarded  as  re- 
spectable child  training.  Her  training  is  treated  at 
length  in  Chapter  XI.  It  is  sufficient  here  to  deal  with 
her  coerciveness,  and  recall  the  epithet  "  child-queller " 
which  Dickens  applied  to  her.  "No  more  expressive  term 
was  ever  used  to  describe  the  wickedness  of  the  coercion- 
ists.  It  means  more  than  most  volumes.  It  has  new 
meaning  every  day  as  our  reverence  for  the  divinity  in 
the  child  grows  stronger,  and  the  absolute  need  of  the 
development  of  his  selfhood  by  his  own  self-activity  be- 
comes clearer.  It  reveals  a  perfect  charnel  house  full  of 
dwarfed  souls  and  blighted  selfhood,  and  weak  characters 
that  should  have  been  strong,  and  false  characters  that 
should  have  been  true,  and  wailings  that  should  have  been 
music,  and  tears  that  should  have  been  laughter,  and 
darkness  that  should  have  been  light,  and  wickedness  that 
should  have  been  a  blessing.  The  one  awful  word  "  child- 
queller  "  means  all  of  evil  that  can  result  from  daring 
to  stand  between  the  child  and  God  in  our  self-satisfied 
ignorance  to  check  the  free,  natural  output  of  its  self- 
hood which  God  meant  to  be  wrought  out  with  increasing 


68  DICKENS  AS  AN   EDUCATOR. 

power  throughout  its  life.  Our  work  is  to  change  the 
direction  of  the  outflowing  selfhood  when  it  is  wrong,  to 
direct  it  to  new  and  better  interest  centres,  but  never  to 
stop  it  or  turn  it  back  upon  itself. 

There  are  thousands  of  child-quellers  teaching  still. 
Would  that  they  could  see  truly  the  dwarfed  souls  they 
have  blighted,  and  the  ghosts  of  the  selfhood  they  have 
sacrificed  on  the  altar  of  what  they  call  discipline! 

The  term  child-queller  was  the  creation  of  genius. 

Mrs.  Pipchin  disdained  the  idea  of  reasoning  with 
children.  "  Hoity-toity !  "  exclaimed  Mrs.  Pipchin,  shak- 
ing out  her  black  bombazine  skirts,  and  plucking  up  all 
the  ogress  within  her.  "  If  she  don't  like  it,  Mr.  Dombey, 
she  must  be  taught  to  lump  it."  She  would  "  shake  her 
head  and  frown  down  a  legion  of  children,"  and  "  the  wild 
ones  went  home  tame  enough  after  sojourning  for  a  few 
months  beneath  her  hospitable  roof."  She  tamed  them 
by  robbing  them  of  their  power,  as  Froebel's  boy  tamed 
flies  by  tearing  off  their  wings  and  legs,  and  then  saying, 
"  See  how  tame  they  are." 

Teachers  used  to  boast  about  their  ability  to  tame 
children,  when  their  ability  really  meant  the  power  to 
destroy  the  tendency  to  put  forth  effort,  to  substitute 
negativeness  for  positiveness. 

Susan  Nipper,  in  her  usual  graphic  style,  expressed 
her  views  regarding  the  coercive  practices  of  Mrs.  Pip- 
chin and  the  Blimbers. 

"  Goodness  knows,"  exclaimed  Miss  Nipper,  "  there's 
a-many  we  could  spare  instead,  if  numbers  is  a  object; 
Mrs.  Pipchin  as  a  overseer  would  come  cheap  at  her  weight 
in  gold,  and  if  a  knowledge  of  black  slavery  should  be  re- 
quired, them  Blimbers  is  the  very  people  for  the  sitiwa- 
tion." 

One  of  Mrs.  Pipchin's  favourite  methods  of  coercing, 
or  taming,  or  child-quelling  was  to  send  children  to  bed. 

"  The  best  thing  you  can  do  is  to  take  off  your  things 
and  go  to  bed  this  minute."  This  was  the  sagacious 
woman's  remedy  for  all  complaints,  particularly  lowness  of 


THE  OVERTHROW  OF  COERCION.  69 

spirits  and  inability  to  sleep;  for  which  offence  many 
young  victims  in  the  days  of  the  Brighton  Castle  had  been 
committed  to  bed  at  ten  o'clock  in  the  morning. 

Another  assault  on  coercion  was  made  in  Dombey  and 
Son  in  the  brief  description  of  the  Grinders'  school. 

Biler's  life  had  been  rendered  weary  by  the  costume  of 
the  Charitable  Grinders.  The  youth  of  the  streets  could 
not  endure  it.  No  ^oung  vagabond  could  be  brought  to 
bear  its  contemplation  for  a  moment  without  throwing 
himself  upon  the  unoffending  wearer  and  doing  him  a  mis- 
chief. His  social  existence  had  been  more  like  that  of  an 
early  Christian  than  an  innocent  child  of  the  nineteenth 
century.  He  had  been  stoned  in  the  streets.  He  had  been 
overthrown  into  gutters;  bespattered  ^vith  mud;  violently 
flattened  against  posts.  Entire  strangers  to  his  person  had 
lifted  his  yellow  cap  off  his  head  and  cast  it  to  the  winds. 
His  legs  had  not  only  undergone  verbal  criticism  and  revil- 
ings,  but  had  been  handled  and  pinched.  That  very  morn- 
ing he  had  received  a  perfectly  unsolicited  black  eye  on  his 
way  to  the  Grinders'  establishment,  and  had  been  punished 
for  it  by  the  master:  a  superannuated  old  Grinder  of  sav- 
age disposition,  who  had  been  appointed  schoolmaster  be- 
cause he  didn't  know  anything  and  wasn't  fit  for  anything, 
and  for  whose  cruel  cane  all  chubby  little  boys  had  a  per- 
fect fascination. 

Poor  Biler  went  wrong,  and  when  he  was  taken  to  task 
for  it  by  Mr.  Carker  he  gave  his  theory  to  account  for 
the  fact  that  he  had  not  done  better  at  school. 

"You're  a  nice  young  gentleman!"  said  Mr.  Carker, 
shaking  his  head  at  him.  "  There's  hemp-seed  sown  for 
you,  my  fine  fellow!" 

"  I'm  sure,  sir,"  returned  the  wretched  Biler,  blubber- 
ing again,  and  again  having  recourse  to  his  coat  cuff:  "  I 
shouldn't  care,  sometimes,  if  it  was  growed  too.  My  mis- 
fortunes all  began  in  wagging,  sir,  but  what  could  I  do, 
exceptin'  wag?  " 

"  Excepting  what?  "  said  Mr.  Carker. 

"  Wag,  sir.     Wagging  from  school." 

"  Do  you  mean  pretending  to  go  there,  and  not  going?  " 
said  Mr.  Carker. 
6 


70  DICKENS  AS  AN  EDUCATOR. 

"  Yes,  sir,  that's  wagging,  sir,"  returned  the  quondam 
Grinder,  much  affected.  "  I  was  chivied  through  the 
streets,  sir,  when  I  went  there,  and  pounded  when  I  got 
there.     So  I  wagged  and  hid  myself,  and  that  began  it." 

When  Mr.  Dombey,  by  whose  act  of  superior  grace 
Biler  had  been  sent  to  the  Charitable  Grinders'  school, 
upbraided  the  boy's  father  for  his  failure  to  turn  out  well, 

the  simple  father  said  that  he  hoped  his  son,  the  quon- 
dam Grinder,  huffed  and  cuffed,  and  flogged  and  badged, 
and  taught,  as  parrots  are,  by  a  brute  jobbed  into  his  place 
of  schoolmaster  with  as  much  fitness  for  it  as  a  hound, 
might  not  have  been  educated  on  quite  a  right  plan. 

Sagacious  teachers  and  parents  often  blame  and  pun- 
ish children  for  being  what  they  made  them. 

Still  another  illustration  of  the  cruel  coercion  prac- 
tised on  children  is  found  in  Dombey  and  Son,  in  the 
training  of  Alice  Marwood. 

"  There  was  a  child  called  Alice  Marwood,"  said  the 
daughter,  with  a  laugh,  and  looking  down  at  herself  in  ter- 
rible derision  of  herself,  "  born  among  poverty  and  neglect, 
and  nursed  in  it.  Nobody  taught  her,  nobody  stepped  for- 
ward to  help  her,  nobody  cared  for  her." 

"  Nobody!  "  echoed  the  mother,  pointing  to  herself,  and 
striking  her  breast. 

"  The  only  care  she  knew,"  returned  the  daughter, 
"  was  to  be  beaten,  and  stinted,  and  abused  sometimes; 
and  she  might  have  done  better  without  that." 

The  picture  of  George  Silverman's  early  life  is  one  of 
the  most  touching  of  all  the  appeals  of  Dickens  on  behalf 
of  childhood.  He  lived  in  a  cellar,  and  when  he  was 
removed  at  length  he  knew  only  the  sensations  of  "  cold, 
hunger,  thirst,  and  the  pain  of  being  beaten."  The  poor 
child  used  to  speculate  on  his  mother's  feet  having  a  good 
or  ill  temper  as  she  descended  the  stairs  to  their  cellar 
home,  and  he  watched  her  knees,  her  waist,  her  face,  as 
they  came  into  view,  to  learn  whether  he  was  likely  to 
be  abused  or  not.  Many  mothers  realized  their  own  cru- 
elty by  reading  such  descriptions  of  cruelty  toward  little 
children. 


THE   OVERTHROW  OF   COERCION.  71 

The  whole  system  of  training  of  Mr.  Gradgrind  and 
his  teacher,  Mr.  M'Choakumchild  (the  latter  name  con- 
tains volumes  of  coercion)  was  a  scientific  system  of  coer- 
civeness  and  restraint,  planned  and  carried  out  by  a  good 
man  misguided  by  false  ideas  about  child  training  and 
character  building.  Coercion  was  only  one  of  several  bad 
elements  in  his  system,  but  he  was  terribly  coercive.  His 
children  were  lavishly  supplied  with  almost  everything 
they  did  not  care  for,  and  robbed  of  everything  they 
should  naturally  be  interested  in. 

The  results  were,  as  might  be  expected,  disastrous. 
His  son  Tom  became  a  monster  of  selfishness,  sensuality, 
and  criminality.  Dickens  uses  the  name  "  whelp  "  to  de- 
scribe him,  and,  in  a  satirical  manner,  accounts  for  his 
meanness  and  weaknesses  in  the  following  summary : 

It  was  very  remarkable  that  a  young  gentleman  who 
had  been  brought  up  under  one  continuous  system  of  un- 
natural restraint  should  be  a  hypocrite;  but  it  was  cer- 
tainly the  case  with  Tom.  It  was  very  strange  that  a 
young  gentleman  who  had  never  been  left  to  his  own  guid- 
ance for  five  consecutive  minutes  should  be  incapable  at 
last  of  governing  himself;  but  so  it  was  with  Tom.  It  was 
altogether  unaccountable  that  a  young  gentleman  whose 
imagination  had  been  strangled  in  his  cradle  should  be 
still  inconvenienced  by  its  ghost  in  the  form  of  grovelling 
sensualities;  but  such  a  monster,  beyond  all  doubt,  was 
Tom. 

"When  Mr.  Gradgrind  became  convinced  that  he  had 
been  altogether  wrong  in  his  educational  ideals  and  was 
endeavouring  to  explain  the  matter  to  Mr.  Bounderby, 
that  gentleman  gave  expression  to  the  views  of  many 
people  of  his  time.  Fortunately  there  are  few  Bounder- 
bys  now,  but  there  are  some  even  yet. 

"Well,  well!  "  returned  Mr.  Gradgrind,  with  a  patient, 
even  a  submissive  air.  And  he  sat  for  a  little  while  ponder- 
ing. "  Bounderby,  I  see  reason  to  doubt  whether  we  have 
ever  quite  understood  Louisa." 

"  What  do  you  mean  by  we?  " 

"  Let  me  say,  I,  then,"  he  returned,  in  answer  to  the 


72  DICKENS  AS  AN  EDUCATOR. 

coarsely  blurted  question;  "  I  doubt  whether  I  have  under- 
stood Louisa.  I  doubt  whether  I  have  been  quite  right  in 
the  manner  of  her  education." 

"  There   you    hit   it,"   returned    Bounderby.     "  There    I 

agree  with  you.     You  have  found  it  out  at  last,  have  you? 

\  Education!     I'll  tell  you  what  education  is — to  be  tumbled 

:  out  of  doors,  neck  and  crop,  and  put  upon  the  shortest 

allowance  of  everything  except  blows.     That's  what  /  call 

education." 

In  his  last  book — Edwin  Drood — Dickens  pictured  Mr. 
Honeythunder  as  a  type  of  coercive  philanthropists,  whom 
he  regarded  as  intolerable  as  well  as  intolerant  nuisances 
— people  who  would  use  force  to  compel  everybody  to 
think  and  act  as  they  are  told  to  think  and  act  by  the 
Honeythunders. 

In  speaking  of  Mr.  Honeythunder  and  his  class  of 
philanthropists.  Rev.  Canon  Crisparkle  said: 

It  is  a  most  extraordinary  thing  that  these  philanthro- 
pists are  so  given  to  seizing  their  fellow-creatures  by  the 
scruff  of  the  neck,  and  (as  one  may  say)  bumping  them 
into  the  paths  of  peace. 

Neville  Landless  described  his  training  to  Canon 
Crisparkle  in  telling  words : 

"  And  to  finish  with,  sir:  I  have  been  brought  up 
among  abject  and  servile  dependents  of  an  inferior  race, 
and  I  may  easily  have  contracted  some  affinity  with  them. 
Sometimes  I  don't  know  but  that  it  may  be  a  drop  of  what 
is  tigerish  in  their  blood." 

There  is  a  profound  philosophy  of  one  phase  of  the 
evils  of  coercion  in  this  statement.  Coercion  does  not 
always  destroy  power  by  blighting  it.  Often  the  power 
that  was  intended  to  bless  turns  to  poison  when  it  is  re- 
pressed, and  makes  men  hypocritical  and  tigerish.  It  is 
true,  too,  that  a  child  who  is  brought  up  with  the  idea 
of  dominating  a  servile  class,  or  even  servile  individuals, 
can  never  have  a  true  conception  of  his  own  freedom. 

Dickens  was  not  satisfied  with  his  numerous  and  sus- 
tained attacks  on  the  more  violent  forms  of  coercion  and 


THE  OVEKTHKOW   OF  COERCION.  73 

repression.  He  began  in  Edwin  Drood  to  draw  a  picture 
of  Mrs.  Crisparkle,  the  mother  of  the  Canon,  to  show 
that  the  placid  firmness  of  her  strong  will  had  a  baleful 
influence  on  character.  Her  character  was  not  completed, 
but  the  outlines  given  are  most  suggestive.  What  could 
surpass  the  absolute  indifference  she  showed  to  the  slight- 
est consideration  for  the  individuality  or  opinions  of 
other  people  when  she  spoke  of  her  wards,  who  were 
grown  up,  it  should  be  remembered,  to  young  manhood 
and  womanhood. 

"  I  have  spoken  with  my  two  wards,  Neville  and  Helena 
Landless,  on  the  subject  of  their  defective  education,  and 
they  give  in  to  the  plan  proposed;  as  I  should  have  taken 
good  care  they  did,  whether  they  liked  it  or  not." 

How  exquisitely  he  reveals  the  character  of  the  emi- 
nently dogmatic,  though  quiet.  Christian  lady  by  her 
remarking  so  definitely  to  her  son,  the  Canon: 

"  I  have  no  objection  to  discuss  it,  Sept.  I  trust,  my 
dear,  I  am  always  open  to  discussion."  There  was  a  vibra- 
tion in  the  old  lady's  cap,  as  though  she  internallj^  added, 
"  And  I  should  like  to  see  the  discussion  that  would  change 
my  mind!" 

Dickens  meant  to  show  that  whether  the  coercion  par- 
took of  the  nature  of  that  exercised  by  Squeers  or  Mrs. 
Crisparkle,  it  resulted  in  forcing  those  compelled  to  sub- 
mit to  it  to  "  give  in,"  and  that  all  children  who  are  regu- 
larly made  to  "  give  in "  acquire  the  habit  of  "  giving 
in,"  and  eventually  become  "  give-iners  "  and  hypocrites 
until  circumstances  make  them  rebels  and  anarchists.  So 
he  condemned  every  form  of  coercion,  and  taught  the 
doctrine  of  true  freedom  for  the  child  as  a  necessary  ele- 
ment in  his  best  development.  When  this  doctrine  is 
fully  understood  men  will  soon  become  truly  free.  All 
true  education  has  been  a  movement  toward  freedom. 
All  true  national  advancement  has  been  toward  more  per- 
fect freedom.  The  ideal  of  national,  constitutional  lib- 
erty has  changed  in  harmony  with  the  educational  reve- 


74  DICKENS  AS  AN  EDUCATOR. 

lations  of  the  broadening  conception  of  freedom;  and 
more  progressive  conceptions  of  national  liberty  have 
rendered  it  necessary  for  the  educators  to  reveal  truer, 
freer  methods  of  training  children  in  harmony  with  the 
higher  national  organization. 

When  the  ideal  of  national  organization  was  the  di- 
vine right  of  kings  to  rule  their  subjects  by  absolute 
.  authority,  the  system  of  national  organization  required 
/  passive  obedience  on  the  part  of  the  subject.  To  secure 
this  coercive  discipline  the  prompt  submission  of  the 
child  to  the  immediate  authority  over  him  was  the  ideal 
process.  Passive  submission  was  required  as  the  full 
duty  of  the  citizen,  and  passive  obedience  was  the  desired 
product  of  the  school.  But  the  new  ideal  of  government 
is  rule  by  the  people  through  their  representatives,  and 
national  citizenship  means  the  intelligent  co-operation  of 
independent  individuals;  so  the  true  educational  ideal  is 
a  free  selfhood,  and  a  free  selfhood  in  maturity  demands 
a  free  selfhood  in  childhood.  To  secure  this  it  is  essen- 
tial that  schools  shall  become  "  free  republics  of  child- 
hood." 

"  But  a  free  selfhood  in  childhood  must  lead  to  an- 
archy," say  those  who  cling  to  the  coercive  ideal.  An- 
archy never  springs  from  freedom.  Anarchy  is  the  foul 
son  of  coercion.  True  freedom  does  not  include  liberty 
to  do  wrong.  The  "  perfect  law  of  liberty  "  is  the  only 
basis  for  perfect  happiness,  because  it  is  not  freedom 
beyond  law,  but  freedom  within  law,  freedom  because  of 
law.  Law  should  never  be  coercive  to  the  child.  When 
it  becomes  so  the  law  is  wrong  and  it  makes  the  child 
wrong,  and  produces  the  apperceptive  centres  of  anarchy 
in  feeling  and  thought  out  of  the  very  elements  that 
should  have  produced  joyous  co-operation.  Law  should 
give  the  child  consciousness  of  power,  and  not  of  restraint. 
Undirected  selfhood,  uncontrolled  selfhood,  is  not  true 
freedom.  The  exercise  of  power  without  limitations 
leads  to  confusion,  indecision,  and  anarchy  in  every- 
thing except  its  spirit  of  rebellion.  The  guidance  and 
control  of  adulthood  and  the  limitations  of  law  are  neces- 
sary to  the   accomplishment   of  the  best  results  in   the 


THE   OVERTHROW   OF   COERCION.  75 

immediate  product  of  effort  put  forth  by  the  child,  in  the 
effect  on  his  character,  and  in  the  development  of  a  true 
consciousness  of  freedom  in  his  life. 

The  terrible  blunder  of  the  past  in  child  training  has 
been  to  make  law  coercive  instead  of  directive.  Law  has 
been  prohibitive,  not  stimulative.  Law  has  defined  bar- 
riers to  prevent  effort,  instead  of  outlining  the  direction 
effort  should  take.  The  limitations  of  law  have  been 
used  to  define  the  course  the  child  should  not  take;  they 
should  have  defined  the  course  he  ought  to  take,  and 
within  the  range  of  which  course  he  should  use  his  self- 
hood in  the  freest  possible  way.  Law  has  said  "  thou 
shalt  not "  when  it  should  have  said  "  thou  shalt  " ;  it 
has  said  "  don't  "  when  it  should  have  said  "  do  " ;  it  has 
said  "  quit "  when  it  should  have  said  "  go  on  " ;  it  has 
said  "  be  still "  when  it  should  have  said  "  work  " ;  it  has 
stood  in  the  way  to  check  when  it  should  have  moved  on 
to  lead  to  victory  and  progress  along  the  most  direct 
lines ;  it  has  given  a  consciousness  of  weakness  instead  of 
a  consciousness  of  power;  it  has  developed  moroseness 
instead  of  joyousness,  self -depreciation  instead  of  self- 
reverence;  and  children  for  these  reasons  have  been  led 
to  dislike  law,  and  the  apperceptive  centres  of  anarchy 
have  been  laid  by  a  coercive  instead  of  a  stimulative  use 
of  law. 

By  false  ideals  of  coercive  law  adulthood  has  been 
made  repressive  instead  of  suggestive,  depressive  instead 
of  helpful,  dogmatic  instead  of  reasonable,  tyrannical  in- 
stead of  free,  "  child-quellers "  instead  of  sympathetic 
friends  of  childhood,  executors  of  penalties  instead  of 
wise  guides,  agents  to  keep  children  under  instead  of  help- 
ing them  up;  and  so  children  have  learned  to  dislike 
school,  and  work,  and  teachers,  and  often  home  and  par- 
ents. And  the  children  have  not  been  to  blame  for  their 
dislike  of  law  and  their  distrust  of  adulthood. 

And  the  children  themselves  by  coercion  have  been 
made  don'ters  instead  of  doers,  quitters  instead  of  work- 
ers, give-iners  instead  of  persevering  winners,  yieldcrs 
to  opposition  instead  of  achievers  of  victory,  negative 
instead  of  positive,  apathetic  instead  of  energetic,  pas- 


76  DICKENS  AS  AN  EDUCATOR. 

sive  instead  of  active,  imitative  instead  of  original,  fol- 
lowers instead  of  leaders,  dependent  instead  of  independ- 
ent, servile  instead  of  free,  conscious  of  weakness  instead 
of  power,  defect  shunners  instead  of  triumphant  creative 
representatives  of  the  God  in  whose  image  man  was 
created. 

Every  agency  that  robs  a  child  of  his  originality  and 
freedom  and  prevents  the  spontaneous  output  of  his  cre- 
ative self -activity  destroys  the  image  of  God  in  him. 
Man  is  most  like  God  when  he  is  freely  working  out  the 
plans  of  his  own  creative  selfhood  for  good  purposes. 
Coercion  has  been  the  greatest  destroyer  of  the  image 
of  God  in  the  child,  and  anarchy  is  the  product  of  the 
perversion  of  the  very  powers  that  should  have  made  man 
hopefully  constructive.  The  seeds  of  anarchy  are  sown 
in  the  child's  life,  when  his  selfhood  is  blighted  and 
checked.  The  fountain  that  finds  free  outlet  for  its 
waters  forms  a  pure  stream  that  remains  always  a  bless- 
ing, but  the  fountain  that  is  obstructed  forms  a  noisome 
marsh,  wasting  the  good  land  it  should  have  watered  and 
destroying  the  plant  life  it  should  have  nourished. 

The  great  salt  seas  and  lakes  and  marshes  of  the 
world  have  been  formed  by  the  checking  of  beautiful 
fresh-water  streams  and  rivers  and  the  prevention  of 
their  outflow  to  the  ocean  they  should  have  reached.  So 
when  the  outflow  of  the  soul  of  the  child  is  checked  the 
powers  that  should  have  ennobled  his  own  life  and  en- 
riched the  lives  of  others  turn  to  evil  instead  of  good, 
and  make  a  dangerous  instead  of  a  helpful  character.  So 
far  as  coercion  can  influence  selfhood  it  destroys  its 
power  for  good  and  makes  it  a  menace  to  civilization, 
instead  of  a  beneficent  agency  in  the  accomplishment  of 
high  purposes.  The  reason  that  coercion  does  not  more 
effectively  blight  and  dwarf  the  child  is  that  childhood 
is  not  under  the  direct  influence  of  adulthood  all  the 
time.  The  blessed  hours  of  freedom  in  play  and  work 
have  saved  the  race. 

The  absurd  idea  that  "  anarchy  will  result  from  giv- 
ing true  freedom  to  the  child"  persists  in  the  minds  of 
so  many  people,  partly  through  the  strength  of  the  race 


THE  OVERTHROW   OF  COERCION.  77 

conception  of  the  need  of  coercion,  from  which  we  have 
not  yet  been  able  fully  to  free  ourselves;  partly  from  a 
terrible  misconception  regarding  the  true  function  of 
law;  partly  through  gross  ignorance  of  the  child  and  lack 
of  reverence  for  him;  and  partly  from  failure  to  under- 
stand our  own  higher  powers  for  guiding  the  child  prop- 
erly, or  the  vital  relationships  of  adulthood  to  childhood. 

The  child  should  recognise  law  as  a  beneficent  guide 
in  the  accomplishment  of  his  own  plans.  In  Froebel's 
wonderful  kindergarten  system  the  child  is  always  guided 
by  law,  but  he  is  always  perfectly  free  to  work  out  his 
own  designs,  and  in  doing  so  he  is  aided  by  law,  not  kept 
back  or  down  by  law.  Law  is,  to  the  truly  trained  child, 
a  revealer  of  right  outlets  for  power,  and  the  supreme 
duties  of  adulthood  in  training  childhood  are  to  change 
the  centre  of  its  interest  when  from  lack  of  wisdom  its 
interest  centre  is  wrong,  and  to  reveal  to  it  in  logical 
sequence  the  laws  of  nature,  of  beauty,  of  harmony,  and 
of  life.  With  such  training  life  and  law  will  always  be 
in  harmony,  and  the  seeds  of  anarchy  will  find  no  soil  in 
human  hearts  or  minds  in  which  to  take  root. 

Dickens  uses  the  French  Revolution,  in  A  Tale  of  Two 
Cities,  to  show  that  anarchy  results  from  coercion,  from 
the  unreasoning  subordination  of  a  lower  to  a  higher  or 
ruling  class.  Against  the  reasoning  of  wisdom  the  Mar- 
quis said :  "Repression  is  the  only  lasting  philosophy.  The 
dark  deference  of  fear  and  slavery,  my  friend,  will  keep 
the  dogs  obedient  to  the  whip  as  long  as  this  roof  shuts 
out  the  sky."  The  roof  came  off  one  wild  night — burned 
off  by  an  infuriated  mob  of  the  dogs  who  had  been  re- 
pressed and  whipped  into  anarchy.  Yet  the  aristocracy 
of  France  claimed,  as  coercionist  educators  claim,  that 
the  anarchy  was  the  result  of  insufficient  coercion,  instead 
of  the  natural  harvest  of  the  seed  they  had  sown. 

It  -was  too  much  the  way  of  monseigneur  under  his 
reverses  as  a  refugee,  and  it  was  much  too  much  the  way  of 
native  British  orthodoxy,  to  talk  of  this  terrible  revolution 
as  if  it  were  the  one  only  harvest  ever  known  under  the 
skies  that  had  not  been  sown — as  if  nothing  had  ever  been 
done  that  had  led  to  it — as  if  the  observers  of  the  wretched 


78  DICKENS  AS  AN   EDUCATOR. 

millions  in  France,  and  of  the  misused  and  perverted 
resources  that  should  have  made  them  prosperous,  had  not 
seen  it  inevitably  coming-,  years  before,  and  had  not  in 
plain  words  recorded  what  they  saw. 

When  the  Revolution  was  at  its  fearful  height,  and  the 
repressed  dogs  were  having  their  wild  carnival  of  revenge, 
Dickens  says: 

Along  the  Paris  streets  the  death-carts  rumble,  hollow 
and  harsh.  Six  tumbrels  carry  the  day's  wine  to  la  guillo- 
tine. All  the  devouring  and  insatiate  monsters  imagined 
since  imagination  could  record  itself,  are  fused  in  the  one 
realization,  guillotine.  And  yet  there  is  not  in  France, 
with  its  rich  variety  of  soil  and  climate,  a  blade,  a  leaf,  a 
root,  a  sprig,  a  peppercorn,  which  will  grow  to  maturity 
under  conditions  more  certain  than  those  that  have  pro- 
duced this  horror.  Crush  humanity  out  of  shape  once 
more,  under  similar  hammers,  and  it  will  twist  itself  into 
the  same  tortured  forms.  Sow  the  same  seed  of  rapacious 
license  and  oppression  over  again,  and  it  will  surely  yield 
the  same  fruit  according  to  its  kind. 

Six  tumbrels  roll  along  the  streets.  Change  these  back 
again  to  what  they  w^ere,  thou  powerful  enchanter,  Time, 
and  they  shall  be  seen  to  be  the  carriages  of  absolute  mon- 
archs,  the  equipages  of  feudal  nobles,  the  toilets  of  flaring 
Jezebels,  the  churches  that  are  not  My  Father's  house  but 
dens  of  thieves,  and  huts  of  millions  of  starving  peasants! 

This  is  the  most  profound  and  most  ably  written  expo- 
sition of  the  philosophy  of  anarchy. 

"  But  by  coercion  I  can  make  the  child  do  right,  and 
in  this  way  I  can  form  habits  of  doing  right  that  will 
control  the  child  when  he  grows  up." 

The  habit  that  is  really  formed  by  coercion  is  the 
habit  of  submission,  of  passive  yielding  to  authority,  of 
subordination,  and,  in  the  last  analysis,  this  means  the 
degradation  and  enslavement  of  the  soul.  Two  habits 
are  thus  wrought  into  the  child's  nature  by  coercion: 
the  habit  of  doing  things  because  ordered  to  do  them, 
which  is  slavery;  and  the  habit  of  doing  things  he  does 
not  like  or  wish  to  do,  which  is  the  basis  of  hypocrisy. 
The  meanest  products  that  can  be  made  from  beings  ere- 


THE   OVERTHROW   OF   COERCION.  79 

ated  in  God's  image  are  slaves  and  hypocrites.  One  of 
the  remarkable  facts  regarding  coercionists  is  that  they 
blame  God  for  creating  the  monstrosities  they  have  them- 
selves produced  by  false  methods  of  training. 

"  We  should  break  the  child's  will,  if  it  is  wrong,  to 
set  it  right,  just  as  we  should  break  a  crooked  leg  to 
make  it  straight." 

This  is  a  statement  that  betrays  a  lack  of  modem 
surgical  knowledge,  and  a  carelessness  of  psychological 
thought.  Modem  treatment  for  the  cure  of  deformity 
of  body  avoids  harsh  treatment  whenever  it  is  possible 
to  do  so.  It  has  been  found  that  many  deformities  of 
body  may  be  cured  by  proper  exercise  of  the  undeveloped 
part  or  parts,  and  with  wider  knowledge  of  Xature's  laws 
will  come  a  wiser  use  of  the  law  of  self-transformation, 
and  a  smaller  and  smaller  use  of  the  severer  methods  of 
treatment.  But  no  good  child  psychologist  now  doubts 
that  a  child's  will  possesses  the  power  of  self-development 
and  self-adjustment  under  proper  guidance,  nor  should 
any  one  be  ignorant  of  the  fact  that  all  true  will  develop- 
ment comes  from  within  outward. 

It  is  only  necessary  that  man  should  study  the  child 
more  thoroughly,  and  learn  how  to  change  his  interest 
centres  from  wrong  to  right,  and  how  to  surround  him 
with  an  environment  suitable  to  his  progressive  stages 
of  development,  in  order  to  keep  his  own  will  in  operation 
along  productive  lines  of  self-reformation  and  self-regu- 
lation by  creative  self -activity.  Thus  the  will  can  be  set 
to  work  truly  with  undiminished  power.  When  a  will 
is  broken,  however,  it  can  never  regain  its  full  power; 
the  breaking  process  blights  it  forever.  More  rational 
processes  retain  its  tendency  to  act  and  its  energy  of 
action  while  changing  the  purpose  and  direction  of  its 
action. 

One  of  the  interesting  anomalies  of  our  language  is 
the  marvellous  fact  that  the  term  "  self-willed  "  should 
ever  have  been  considered  a  term  of  reproach  or  a  descrip- 
tion of  a  defect  in  character.  The  child  with  strongest 
self-will  may  become  the  greatest  champion  for  right- 
eousness if  properly  trained.     He  needs  a  wise  and  sym- 


80  DICKENS  AS  AN   EDUCATOR. 

pathetic  trainer,  who  will  be  reverently  grateful  for  his 
strong  self-will,  and  whose  reverence  will  prevent  him 
from  doing  anything  that  would  weaken  the  strength  or 
selfhood  of  the  will.  The  attempt  to  break  his  will  may 
make  him  a  destroying  force  instead  of  a  leader  for 
truth  and  progress.  If  a  strangled  will  ever  regains  vital- 
ity it  rarely  acts  truly.  There  is  perhaps  no  other  relic 
of  the  theories  of  barbaric  ignorance  concerning  child 
training  still  left  that  is  so  baneful  and  so  illogical  as  the 
theory  that  justifies  will  breaking. 

"  But  God  punishes  the  child.  The  child  who  touches 
the  fire  gets  burned,  and  therefore  it  is  right  that  coer- 
cive punishment  should  be  used  by  adulthood  in  dealing 
with  the  child." 

The  punishments  referred  to  are  the  revelation  of 
natural  laws.  There  is  no  personal  element  of  the  pun- 
ishing agency  manifest  to  the  child.  God  does  not  ap- 
pear to  the  child  as  a  punisher,  and  it  is  an  astounding 
error  in  training  to  reveal  such  a  consciousness  of  God 
to  the  child.  Responsibility  for  the  consequences  of 
their  acts  is  a  law  of  which  all  children  approve.  This 
appeals  to  their  sense  of  justice,  and  there  is  no  other 
sense  to  which  we  can  appeal  with  success  so  universally 
in  children  as  the  sense  of  justice.  "  Squareness  "  is  the 
highest  quality  named  in  the  lexicon  of  childhood.  A  boy 
would  rather  be  deemed  "  square  "  than  receive  praise  for 
any  other  characteristic  or  accomplishment.  So  he  recog- 
nises the  justice  of  being  held  accountable  for  the  di- 
rectly resulting  consequences  of  his  acts  quite  as  readily 
as  he  accepts  the  fact,  without  blaming  any  one  else, 
that  he  will  be  burned  if  he  touches  fire.  There  is  no 
element  of  coercion  in  the  law  of  consequences.  It  is  a 
just  and  universal  law  in  harmony  with  his  moral  respon- 
sibility; therefore  he  will  respect  it.  Coercion  is  directly 
contrary  to  the  fundamental  laws  of  his  happiness  and 
his  true  growth,  and  therefore  he  naturally  and  properly 
dislikes  and  disapproves  of  it,  and  of  the  individual  who 
outrages  justice  by  using  it. 

The  wonderful  stories  of  Dickens  set  the  world  think- 
ing by  first  arousing  the  strongest  feelings  of  sjTnpathy 


THE   OVERTHROW  OF   COERCION.  81 

for  the  child  and  then  developing  sentiment  and  thought 
against  every  form  of  coercion,  more  especially  coercion 
by  corporal  punishment.  The  awakening  has  been  most 
satisfactory  in  its  results.  When  Dickens  began  his  writ- 
ing against  corporal  punishment  the  rod  was  the  almost 
universal  remedy  for  all  defects  in  animals  or  human  be- 
ings. Whatever  the  defect,  the  superior  in  the  eyes  of  the 
law  used  the  one  agency  to  overcome  it.  Mothers  used  the 
rod  to  subdue  their  children.  Husbands  used  the  rod  to 
keep  their  children  and  wives  in  order.  Men  whipped 
their  horses  with  impunity,  as  they  did  their  children  or 
wives.  They  owned  them,  and  their  right  to  punish 
them  as  they  chose  was  unquestioned.  Men  trained  ani- 
mals to  perform  tricks  in  menageries  by  beating  them, 
and  they  trained  dancing,  or  performing,  or  learning 
girls  and  boys  quite  as  inhumanly.  Ownership  or  subor- 
dination justified  unspeakable  cruelty.  The  weakness  of 
the  child,  the  helplessness  of  the  animal,  appealed  to  the 
hardness  of  human  nature,  and  not  to  its  chivalry  or  sym- 
pathy. Even  the  poor  feeble-minded  and  idiotic,  who 
were  confined  in  asylums,  were  terribly  flogged  by  the 
most  advanced  philanthropists  of  the  highest  Christian 
civilization.  They  were  weak.  It  was  the  duty  of  the 
authorities  to  control  them,  and  "  stripes  and  bruises " 
were  regarded  as  the  only  true  agencies  for  securing  obe- 
dience. The  rod  was  the  highest  controlling  and  direct- 
ing force  in  the  world. 

What  a  change  has  been  wrought !  Horses  and  chil- 
dren and  wives  are  protected  from  brutal  treatment  now 
by  law.  The  insane  are  not  flogged  to  make  them  sane 
in  any  well-conducted  institutions.  More  than  half  the 
children  in  the  schools  of  the  civilized  world  are  free 
from  the  terror  and  degradation  of  corporal  punishment 
by  law,  or  by  the  higher  consciousness  of  more  intelli- 
gent teachers.  Parenthood  everywhere  is  studying  the 
child  and  trying  to  become  conscious  of  its  own  higher 
powers  of  guiding  character  so  that  it  may  be  able  to 
train  the  children  in  truer  and  more  productive  and  less 
dangerous  ways  than  formerly.  And  Charles  Dickens 
"was  the  great  apostle  of  these  grand  reforms. 


82  DICKENS  AS   AN   EDUCATOR. 

We  shudder  now  as  we  read  of  the  outrages  practised 
on  helpless  children  and  on  the  insane  half  a  century 
ago  not  by  the  heathen,  but  by  earnest,  conscientious 
Christians.  The  men  who  live  half  a  century  hence  will 
shudder  when  they  read  that  in  some  schools  at  the  close 
of  the  nineteenth  century  children  who  were  partially  or 
temporarily  insane  from  hereditary  taint,  or  imperfect  nu- 
trition, or  cruel  treatment,  or  anger,  or  from  some  other  re- 
movable or  remediable  cause  were  whipped,  and  that  men, 
some  of  whom  occupied  respectable  positions,  advocated 
the  breaking  of  childrens  wills !  If  these  "  will-breaking  " 
educators  were  in  charge  of  asylums  they  would  resurrect 
the  strait  jacket  and  the  whipping  post  for  the  insane. 

The  few  who  advocate  corporal  punishment  openly 
claim  that  they  have  the  authority  of  the  Bible  for  their 
faith  in  the  rod.  They  should  remember  that  good  men 
have  stood  with  Bibles  in  their  hands  misrepresenting 
God  and  attempting  to  stop  the  progress  of  every  great 
movement  toward  freedom  and  reform.  Galileo  was 
imprisoned  by  the  Church  because  he  taught  that  the 
earth  turns  round.  Men  had  no  difficulty  in  showing 
that  the  Bible  approved  of  slavery,  or  that  it  prohibited 
woman  from  the  exercise  of  the  right  or  the  perform- 
ance of  the  duties  of  responsible  individuality.  So  men 
still  quote  Solomon  to  show  that  corporal  punishment 
is  approved  by  God,  though  such  a  conclusion  would  be 
rejected  by  the  highest  interpreters. 

"  Whipping  makes  strong  characters."  No,  it  makes 
hard  characters,  and  hardness  is  but  one  element  of 
strength,  and  not  the  best  element  of  strength.  The 
strength  of  the  English  character  has  not  been  devel- 
oped, as  is  claimed  by  some,  by  the  whipping  done  in 
English  schools  and  homes.  It  comes  partly  by  race 
heredity  from  the  sturdiness  of  the  Saxon  and  Norman 
founders  of  the  race,  partly  from  the  general  practice 
of  working  hard  from  youth  up,  and  largely  from  the 
fact  that  the  English  playgrounds  are  so  universally 
used,  and  are  the  scenes  of  the  severest  struggles  for 
supremacy  in  skill  and  power  that  are  witnessed  in  any 
part  of  the  world.     The  winning  half  inch  or  half  length, 


(■ 


<. 


THE  ov:erthrow  of  coercion.  83 

the  valorous  struggle  for  leadership  on  track  or  river — 
these  are  the  things  that  have  preserved  and  developed 
English  force  and  bravery,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  Eng- 
land in  her  schools  and  homes  has  done  fully  her  share 
of  whipping.  A  boy  or  girl  who  spends  as  much  time 
in  free  strong  play  as  the  English  boy,  works  out  the 
effects  of  a  great  many  evils  from  his  or  her  life.  When 
men  see  the  futility  of  dependence  on  flogging  for  devel- 
oping energetic  strength  of  character  they  will  study  the 
influence  of  play  to  the  great  advantage  of  racial  vigour, 
and  courage,  and  moral  energy. 

Corporal  punishment,  like  all  other  forms  of  coer- 
cion, robs  the  child  of  joyousness,  and  joyousness  is  one 
of  the  most  essential  elements  in  the  true  growth  of  a 
child.  Corporal  punishment  affects  the  nervous  systems 
of  children  injuriously,  and  when  applied  to  certain  parts 
of  the  body  it  stimulates  prematurely  the  action  of  the 
sexual  nature,  and  leads  to  one  of  the  worst  forms  of 
depravity. 

Corporal  punishment  is  ineffective  as  a  disciplinary 
agency.  In  one  American  city  during  the  generation 
after  Dickens  began  his  great  crusade  against  corporal 
punishment  it  was  the  practice  to  whip  with  a  rawhide 
all  children  who  came  late,  but  the  lateness  steadily  in- 
creased in  defiance  of  the  rawhide.  It  was  reduced  to 
less  than  one  one-hundredth  part  of  its  former  proportion 
when  whipping  for  lateness  was  entirely  abolished  and 
more  rational  means  adopted. 

The  order  and  co-operation  of  pupils  is  best  in  those 
schools  in  which  no  corporal  punishment  is  used.  If  in  any 
school  only  one  teacher  relies  on  the  rod  as  a  stimulator 
to  work  and  a  restrainer  of  evil,  her  class  is  sure  to  be  the 
most  disorderly,  the  least  co-operative,  and  the  most  defec- 
tive in  original  power  in  the  school.  As  the  children 
throughout  the  school  come  from  the  same  homes,  play 
with  the  same  companions,  attend  the  same  churches,  and 
are  subject  to  the  same  general  influences,  it  is  perfectly 
clear  that  the  whipping  is  the  distinctive  feature  of  char- 
acter training  that  deforms  the  children.  They  will  become 
normal,   reasonable  children  when  they  reach  the   next 


g4  DICKENS  AS  AN   EDUCATOR. 

room.  This  illustration  assumes  that  all  the  teachers  are 
possessed  of  good  natural  ability  to  direct  the  child  prop- 
erly. The  one  who  uses  corporal  punishment  fails  be- 
cause she  has  been  dwarfed  by  her  faith  in  corporal  pun- 
ishment. She  has  believed  in  it  so  fully  that  she  has 
not  sought  to  understand  higher  and  better  means.  She 
has  studied  neither  the  child  nor  her  own  powers  of  child 
guidance. 

Dickens  taught  the  inefficiency  of  coercion  to  accom- 
plish what  men  hoped  to  accomplish  by  it  in  his  criticism 
of  the  revolting  use  of  capital  punishment  in  former 
times.    In  A  Tale  of  Two  Cities  he  says : 

Accordingly,  the  forger  was  put  to  Death;  the  utterer 
of  a  bad  note  was  put  to  Death;  the  unlawful  opener  of 
a  letter  was  put  to  Death;  the  purloin er  of  forty  shillings 
and  sixpence  was  put  to  Death;  the  holder  of  a  horse  at 
Tellson's  door,  who  made  off  with  it,  was  put  to  Death; 
the  coiner  of  a  bad  shilling  was  put  to  Death;  the  sound- 
ers of  three  fourths  of  the  notes  in  the  whole  gamut  of 
crime  were  put  to  Death.  Not  that  it  did  the  least  good 
in  the  way  of  prevention — it  might  always  have  been 
worth  remarking  that  the  fact  was  exactly  the  reverse. 

r  The  great  prophets  of  modern  education — Pestalozzi, 
<  Froebel,  Barnard,  and  Mann — strongly  condemned  cor- 
poral punishment.  These  were  men  of  clear  insight  and 
correct  judgment.  The  opinion  of  one  such  man  is  worth 
more  than  the  views  of  ten  thousand  ordinary  men  in 
regard  to  the  subject  of  their  special  study.  They  were 
prophet  souls  who  saw  the  higher  truth  toward  which 
the  race  had  been  slow^ly  growing,  and  revealed  it. 

Their  revelations  have  been  appreciated  and  adopted 
more  and  more  fully  as  they  have  been  understood  more 
and  more  clearly.  In  the  case  of  corporal  punishment 
and  all  forms  of  coercion  Dickens  has  been  the  John  the 
Baptist  and  the  Paul  of  the  revelation  of  the  gospel  of 
sympathy  for  the  child. 

Not  one  blow  in  a  thousand  is  given  to  a  child  now 
as  compared  with  the  time  of  Dickens's  childhood.  Cor- 
poral punishment  is  prohibited  in  the  schools  of  France, 


THE   OVERTHROW   OF   COERCION.  85 

Italy,  Switzerland,  Finland,  Brazil,  Xew  Jersey,  and  in 
the  following  cities :  Xew  York,  Chicago,  Cleveland,  Al- 
bany, Syracuse,  Toledo,  and  Savannah.  In  Washington 
and  Philadelphia  teachers  voluntarily  gave  up  the  prac- 
tice of  whipping.  This  is  true  of  the  majority  of  indi- 
vidual teachers  in  the  cities  of  America,  and  the  num- 
ber of  those  who  do  without  all  forms  of  coercive  disci- 
pline is  rapidly  increasing. 

The  whipping  of  girls  is  prohibited  in  Saxony,  Hes- 
sen,  Oldenburg,  and  in  many  cities.  Few  girls  are  now 
whipped  in  schools  anywhere.  Corporal  punishment  has 
been  abolished  for  the  higher  grades  in  Xorway  and  in 
the  lower  grades  in  Saxony,  Hessen,  Bremen,  and  Ham- 
burg. In  the  last-named  city  the  cane  is  kept  under  lock 
and  key.  In  some  places  the  consent  of  parents  must  be 
obtained  before  children  may  be  whipped,  in  some  places 
the  number  of  strokes  is  limited;  in  other  places  a  rec- 
ord is  kept  of  every  case  of  corporal  punishment  and 
reports  made  monthly  to  the  school  boards.  Everywhere 
action  has  been  taken  to  prohibit  or  restrict  the  use 
of  the  once  universally  respected  and  universally  domi- 
nant rod. 

All  wise  trainers  of  children  recognise  the  value  of 
obedience,  but  truly  wise  trainers  no  longer  aim  to  make 
children  merely  submissively  obedient,  nor  even  willing- 
ly responsive  in  their  obedience.  They  try  to  make  them 
independently,  co-operatively,  and  reverently  obedient ; 
independent  in  free  development  of  will,  co-operative  in 
unity  of  effort  with  their  fellows  and  their  adult  guides, 
and  reverent  in  their  attitude  to  law.  The  substitution 
of  independence  for  subserviency,  of  co-operation  for  for- 
mal, responsive  obedience,  and  of  reverence  for  law  for 
fear  of  law  are  the  most  important  development  in  child 
training. 

In  Dickens's  ideal  school.  Doctor  Strong's,  there  was 
"  plenty  of  liberty." 

Gladstone's  criticism,  when  over  seventy,  of  his  own 

teachers  was  that  they  were  afraid  of  freedom.    He  said : 

"I  did  not  learn  to  set  a  due  value  on  the  imperishable 

and  inestimable  principles  of  human  liberty.    The  temper 

7 


86  DICKENS  AS  AN  EDUCATOR. 

which  I  think  prevailed  among  them  was  that  liberty  was 
regarded  with  jealousy,  and  fear  could  not  be  wholly  dis- 
pensed with."  The  true  teacher  is  not  afraid  of  freedom, 
but  makes  it  the  dominant  element  in  his  training  and  in 
his  educational  theory. 

May  the  profounder  truth  in  regard  to  child  train- 
ing spread  to  the  ends  of  the  earth!  May  the  time  soon 
come  when  there  shall  be  no  disciples  of  Susan  Nipper's 
doctrine,  "  that  childhood,  like  money,  must  be  shaken 
and  rattled  and  jostled  about  a  good  deal  to  keep  it 
bright " !  May  Christian  civilization  soon  be  free  from 
such  memories  as  the  remembrance  of  Mr.  Obenreizer, 
in  No  Thoroughfare,  had  of  his  parents :  "  I  was  a  fam- 
ished naked  little  wretch  of  two  or  three  years  when 
they  were  men  and  women  with  hard  hands  to  beat  me  " ! 
May  Christ's  teaching  soon  be  so  fully  understood  that 
there  will  be  no  child  anywhere  like  the  shivering  little 
boy  in  The  Haunted  Man,  who  was  "  used  already  to  be 
worried  and  hunted  like  a  beast,  who  crouched  down  as 
he  was  looked  at,  and  looked  back  again,  and  interposed 
his  arm  to  ward  off  the  expected  blow,  and  threatened 
to  bite  if  he  was  hit " !  May  teachers  and  all  trainers 
of  children  learn  the  underlying  philosophy  of  the  state- 
ment made  by  Dickens,  in  connection  with  the  schools  of 
the  Stepney  Union,  in  The  Uncommercial  Traveller :  "  In 
the  moral  health  of  these  schools — where  corporal  pun- 
ishment is  unknown — truthfulness  stands  high"! 


CHAPTER   lY. 

THE    DOCTRINE    OF    CHILD    DEPRAVITY. 

Dickens  heartily  accepted  Froebel's  view  of  the  doc- 
trine of  child  depravity.  They  did  not  teach  that  the 
child  is  totally  divine,  but  neither  did  they  believe  that  a 
being  created  in  God's  image  is  entirely  depraved. 

They  recognised  very  clearly  that  the  doctrine  of 
child  depravity  was  the  logical  (or  illogical)  basis  of  the 
theory  of  corporal  punishment  and  all  forms  of  coer- 
cion. What  more  natural  or  more  logical  than  the  prac- 
tice of  checking  the  outflow  of  a  child's  inner  life  if  we 
believe  his  inner  life  to  be  depraved?  The  firm  belief 
in  the  doctrine  of  child  depravity  compelled  conscien- 
tious men  to  be  repressive  and  coercive  in  their  disci- 
pline. Dickens  understood  this  fully,  and  therefore  he 
gave  the  doctrine  no  place  in  his  philosophy. 

Mrs.  Pipchin's  training  was  based  squarely  on  the 
doctrine  of  child  depravity,  for  "  the  secret  of  her  man- 
agement of  children  was  to  give  them  everything  that 
they  didn't  like,  and  nothing  that  they  did."  If  the 
training  of  children  under  the  "  good  old  regime,^^  for 
which  some  reactionary  philosophers  are  still  pleading, 
is  carefully  analyzed,  it  will  be  found  that  Mrs.  Pipchin^s 
plan  was  the  commonly  approved  plan,  and  it  was  the 
perfectly  logical  outcome  of  the  doctrine  that  the  child, 
being  wholly  depraved,  desired  everything  it  should  not 
have  and  objected  to  everything  it  should  have. 

That  was  a  touching  question  addressed  by  a  little 
boy  to  his  father:  "  Say,  papa,  did  mamma  stop  you  from 
doing  evervthing  you  wished  to  do  when  you  were  a  little 
boy?" 

How   Dickens    despised   the    awful   theology    of   the 

87 


88  DICKEiNS  AS  AN  EDUCATOR. 

Murdstones,  who  would  not  let  David  play  with  other 
children,  because  they  believed  "  all  children  to  be  a 
swarm  of  little  vipers  [though  there  was  a  child  once  set 
in  the  midst  of  the  Disciples],  and  held  that  they  con- 
taminated one  another  " ! 

How  he  laughed  at  Mrs.  Varden  and  Miggs,  her  maid ! 

"  If  you  hadn't  the  sweetness  of  an  angel  in  you,  mim, 
I  don't  think  you  could  abear  it,  I  raly  don't." 

"  Miggs,"  said  Mrs.  Varden,  "  you're  profane." 

"  Begging  your  pardon,  mim,"  returned  Miggs  with 
shrill  rapidity,  "  such  was  not  my  intentions,  and  such  I 
hope  is  not  my  character,  though  I  am  but  a  servant." 

"  Answering  me,  Miggs,  and  providing  yourself,"  re- 
torted her  mistress,  looking  round  with  dignity,  "  is  one 
and  the  same  thing.  How  dare  you  speak  of  angels  in  con- 
nection with  your  sinful  fellow-beings — mere  " — said  Mrs. 
Varden,  glancing  at  herself  in  a  neighbouring  mirror,  and 
arranging  the  ribbon  of  her  cap  in  a  more  becoming  fash- 
ion— ""  mere  worms  and  grovellers  as  we  are!  " 

"  I  do  not  intend,  mim,  if  you  please,  to  give  offence," 
said  Miggs,  confident  in  the  strength  of  her  compliment, 
and  developing  strongly  in  the  throat  as  usual,  "  and  I  did 
not  expect  it  would  be  took  as  such.  I  hope  I  know  my 
own  unworthiness,  and  that  I  hate  and  despise  myself  and 
all  my  fellow-creatures  as  every  practicable  Christian 
should." 

Oliver  Twist  was  described  by  the  philanthropists 
who  cared  for  him  as  "  under  the  exclusive  patronage  and 
protection  of  the  powers  of  wickedness,  and  an  article 
direct  from  the  manufactory  of  the  very  devil  himself." 

Mr.  Grimwig  had  no  faith  in  boys,  and  he  tried  hard 
to  shake  Mr.  Brownlow's  faith  in  Oliver. 

"  He  is  a  nice-looking  boy,  is  he  not?  "  inquired  Mr. 
Brownlow. 

"  I  don't  know,"  replied  Mr.  Grimwig  pettishly. 

"  Don't  know?  " 

"  No.  I  don't  know,  I  never  see  any  difference  in  boys. 
I  only  know  two  sorts  of  boys:  mealy  boys  and  beef-faced 
boys." 

"  And  which  is  Oliver?  " 


THE  DOCTRINE  OF  CHILD  DEPRAVITY.    89 

"  Mealy.  I  know  a  friend  who  has  a  beef-faced  boy — a 
fine  boy,  they  call  him;  with  a  round  head,  and  red  cheeks, 
and  glaring  eyes;  a  horrid  boy;  with  a  body  and  limbs  that 
appear  to  be  swelling  out  of  the  seams  of  his  blue  clothes; 
with  the  voice  of  a  pilot,  and  the  appetite  of  a  wolf.  I 
know  him!     The  wretch!  " 

"  Come,"  said  Mr.  Brownlow,  "  these  are  not  the  charac- 
teristics of  young  Oliver  Twist;  so  he  needn't  excite  your 
wrath." 

"  They  are  not,"  replied  Mr.  Grimwig.  "  He  may  have 
worse.     He  is  deceiving  you,  my  good  friend." 

"  I'll  swear  he  is  not,"  replied  Mr.  Browmlow  warmly. 

"  If  he  is  not,"  said  Mr.  Grimwig,  "  I'll "  and  down 

went  the  stick. 

"I'll  answer  for  that  boy's  truth  with  my  life!  "  said 
Mr.  Brownlow,  knocking  the  table. 

"  And  I  for  his  falsehood  with  my  head!  "  rejoined  Mr. 
Grimwig,  knocking  the  table  also. 

"  We  shall  see,"  said  Mr.  Brownlow,  checking  his  rising 
anger. 

"  We  will,"  replied  Mr.  Grimwig,  with  a  provoking 
smile;   "  we  will." 

Dickens  always  pleaded  for  more  faith  in  children. 

In  Great  Expectations  poor  Pip  was  continually  re- 
minded of  the  fact  that  he  was  "  naterally  wicious,"  and 
at  the  great  Christmas  dinner  party  Mr.  Pumblechook 
took  him  as  the  illustration  of  his  theological  discourse 
on  "  swine "  and  Mrs.  Hubble  commiserated  Mrs,  Gar- 
gery  about  the  trouble  he  had  caused  her  by  all  his  way- 
wardness. 

"Trouble?"  echoed  my  sister,  "trouble?"  And  then 
entered  on  a  fearful  catalogue  of  all  the  illnesses  I  had  been 
guilty  of.  and  all  the  acts  of  sleeplessness  I  had  committed, 
and  all  the  high  places  I  had  tumbled  from,  and  all  the  low 
places  I  had  tumbled  into,  and  all  the  injuries  I  had  done 
myself,  and  all  the  times  she  had  wished  me  in  my  grave, 
and  I  had  contumaciously  refused  to  go  there. 

Again,  when  Pip  was  Just  beginning  his  life  away 
from  home  his  guardian,  Mr.  Jaggers,  said  to  him  at  their 
first  interview :  "  I  shall  by  this  means  be  able  to  check 


90  DICKENS   AS  AN   EDUCATOR. 

your  bills,  and  to  pull  you  up  if  I  find  you  outrunning  the 
constable.  Of  course  you'll  go  wrong  somehow,  but 
that's  no  fault  of  mine." 

"  Of  course  you'll  go  wrong  somehow,"  was  an  inspir- 
ing start  in  life  for  a  young  gentleman. 

Abel  Magwitch,  Pip's  friend,  told  him  near  the  close 
of  his  career  how  he  came  to  lead  such  a  dissipated  and 
criminal  life.  He  evidently  had  ability  and  possessed  a 
deep  sense  of  gratitude,  and  might  have  developed  the 
other  virtues  if  he  had  been  treated  properly.  Dickens 
used  him  as  an  illustration  of  the  fact  that  society  fails 
often  to  do  the  best  for  a  boy  and  make  the  most  out  of 
him  through  sheer  lack  of  faith  in  childhood,  and  that 
this  lack  of  faith  results  from  the  belief  that  a  boy  is  so 
depraved  that  he  would  rather  do  wrong  than  right,  and 
that  when  he  starts  to  do  wrong  there  is  no  hope  of  his 
reform. 

"  Dear  boy  and  Pip's  comrade.  I  am  not  a-going  fur  to 
tell  you  my  life,  like  a  song  or  a  story-book.  But  to  give  it 
you  short  and  handj%  I'll  put  it  at  once  into  a  mouthful  of 
English.  In  jail  and  out  of  jail,  in  jail  and  out  of  jail,  in 
jail  and  out  of  jail.  There,  you've  got  it.  That's  my  life 
pretty  much,  down  to  such  times  as  I  got  shipped  off,  arter 
Pip  stood  my  friend. 

"  I've  been  done  everything  to,  pretty  well — except 
hanged.  I've  been  locked  up,  as  much  as  a  silver  teakittle. 
I've  been  carted  here  and  carted  there,  and  put  out  of  this 
town  and  put  out  of  that  town,  and  stuck  in  the  stocks,  and 
whipped  and  w^orried  and  drove.  I've  no  more  notion 
where  I  was  born,  than  you  have — if  so  much.  I  first  be- 
come aware  of  myself,  down  in  Essex,  a-thieving  turnips  for 
my  living.  Summun  had  run  away  from  me — a  man — a 
tinker — and  he'd  took  the  fire  with  him,  and  left  me  wery 
cold. 

"  I  know'd  my  name  to  be  Magwitch,  chrisen'd  Abel. 
How  did  I  know  it?  Much  as  I  know'd  the  birds'  names  in 
the  hedges  to  be  chaffinch,  sparrer,  thrush.  I  might  have 
thought  it  was  all  lies  altogether,  only  as  the  birds'  names 
come  out  true,  I  supposed  mine  did. 

"  So  fur  as  I  could  find,  there  warn't  a  soul  that  see 
young  Abel  Magwitch,  with  as  little  on  him  as  in  him,  but 
wot  caught  fright  at  him,  and  either  drove  him  off  or  took 


THE   DOCTRIXE   OF   CHILD   DEPRAVITY.  91 

him  up.     I  was  took  up,  took  up,  took  up,  to  that  extent 
that  I  reg'larly  grow'd  up  took  up. 

"  This  is  the  way  it  was,  that  when  I  was  a  ragged  little 
creetur  as  much  to  be  pitied  as  ever  I  see  (not  that  I  looked 
in  the  glass,  for  there  warn't  many  insides  of  furnished 
houses  known  to  me).  I  got  the  name  being  hardened. 
'  This  is  a  terrible  hardened  one,'  they  says  to  prison  wisi- 
tors,  picking  out  me.  '  May  be  said  to  live  in  jails,  this 
boy.'  Then  they  looked  at  me,  and  I  looked  at  them,  and 
they  measured  my  head,  some  on  'em — they  had  better 
a-measured  my  stomach — and  others  on  'em  giv'  me  tracts 
what  I  couldn't  read,  and  made  me  speeches  what  I  couldn't 
understand.    They  always  went  on  agen  me  about  the  devil." 

Poor  old  Toby  Veck,  in  The  Chimes,  reflected  the 
theories  that  Dickens  wished  to  overthrow. 

"  It  seems  as  if  we  can't  go  right,  or  do  right,  or  be 
righted,"  said  Toby.  "  I  hadn't  much  schooling,  myself, 
when  I  was  young;  and  I  can't  make  out  whether  we  have 
any  business  on  the  face  of  the  earth,  or  not.  Sometimes 
I  think  we  must  have — a  little;  and  sometimes  I  think  we 
must  be  intruding.  I  get  so  puzzled  sometimes  that  I  am 
not  even  able  to  make  up  my  mind  whether  there  is  any 
good  at  all  in  us,  or  whether  we  are  born  bad.  We  seem  to 
be  dreadful  things;  we  seem  to  give  a  deal  of  trouble;  we 
are  always  being  complained  of  and  guarded  against." 

The  most  realistic  picture  of  the  influence  of  the 
child-depravity  ideal  on  the  training  of  childhood  is 
given  in  Mrs.  Clennam,  in  Little  Dorrit.  She  was  a 
hard,  malignant,  dishonest,  unsympathetic  woman,  who 
had  deliberately  driven  Arthur's  mother  to  madness  and 
blighted  his  father's  life  in  the  name  of  her  false  religion, 
and  blasphemously  claimed  that  she  was  doing  it  in  God's 
stead,  as  his  devoted  servant.  Yet  she  was  sure  she  was 
truly  religious,  and  had  a  pious  vanity  in  the  fact  that 
she  was  "  filled  with  an  abhorrence  of  evil  doers."  She 
was  filled  with  gladness,  too,  at  the  prospect  of  marrying 
a  man  of  like  training  with  herself.  Speaking  of  the 
training  of  herself  and  her  husband  she  said : 

"  You  do  not  know  what  it  is  to  be  brought  up  strictly 
and  straitly.     I  was  so  brought  up.     Mine  was  no  light 


/ 


92  DICKENS   AS   AN   EDUCATOR. 

youth  of  sinful  gaiety  and  pleasure.  Mine  were  days  of 
wholesome  repression,  punishment,  and  fear.  The  corrup- 
tion of  our  hearts,  the  evil  of  our  ways,  the  curse  that  is 
upon  us,  the  terrors  that  surround  us — these  were  the 
themes  of  my  childhood.  They  formed  my  character,  and 
filled  me  with  an  abhorrence  of  evil  doers.  When  old  Mr. 
Gilbert  Clennam  proposed  his  orphan  nephew  to  my  father 
for  my  husband,  my  father  impressed  upon  me  that  his 
bringing--up  had  been,  like  mine,  one  of  severe  restraint. 
He  told  me,  that  besides  the  discipline  his  spirit  had  under- 
g-one,  he  had  lived  in  a  starved  house,  where  rioting  and 
gaiety  were  unknown,  and  where  every  day  was  a  day  of 
toil  and  trial  like  the  last.  He  told  me  that  he  had  been 
a  man  in  years  long  before  his  uncle  had  acknowledged 
him  as  one;  and  that  from  his  school  days  to  that  hour,  his 
uncle's  roof  had  been  a  sanctuary  to  him  from  the  con- 
tagion of  the  irreligious  and  dissolute." 

Speaking  of  her  training  of  Arthur,  she  said: 

"  I  devoted  myself  to  reclaim  the  otherwise  j^redestined 
and  lost  boy;  to  bring  him  up  in  fear  and  trembling,  and 
in  a  life  of  practical  contrition  for  the  sins  that  were  heavy 
on  his  head  before  his  entrance  into  this  condemned  world." 

Dickens  describes  her  religious  character  as  such  as 
might  naturally  be  expected  to  develop  in  a  woman  whose 
childhood  revealed  to  her  only  the  self-abnegation  and 
terrors  of  religion  and  the  utter  contempt  for  humanity 
shrouded  in  the  doctrine  of  child  depravity.  She  had 
seen  God  as  an  awful  character  of  sleepless  watchfulness 
to  see  her  evil  doing  and  record  it,  of  wrathfulness,  and 
of  vengeance,  but  never  of  loving  sympathy  and  forgive- 
ness. So  she  fitted  her  religion  to  the  character  that 
such  training  had  formed  in  her. 

Great  need  had  the  rigid  woman  of  her  mystical  re- 
ligion, veiled  in  gloom  and  darkness,  with  lightnings  of 
cursing,  vengeance,  and  destruction,  flashing  through  the 
sable  clouds.  Forgive  us  our  debts  as  we  forgive  our 
debtors,  was  a  prayer  too  poor  in  spirit  for  her.  Smite 
Thou  my  debtors.  Lord,  wither  them,  crush  them;  do  Thou 
as  I  would  do,  and  Thou  shalt  have  my  worship:  this  was 
the  impious  tower  of  stone  she  built  up  to  scale  heaven. 


THE   DOCTRINE   OF   CHILD   DEPRAVITY.         93 

The  old  discipline  and  the  old  training  were  based 
on  the  belief  that  children  like  to  do  wrong  better  than 
to  do  right.  There  could  be  no  greater  error,  or  one 
more  certain  to  lead  to  false  principles  of  training,  and 
prevent  the  recognition  of  the  true  methods  of  develop- 
ing character  in  childhood. 

Children  do  not  like  to  do  wrong  better  than  to  do 
right.  They  like  to  do.  They  like  to  do  the  things  they 
themselves  plan  to  do.  They  like  to  do  the  things  that  are 
interesting  to  themselves.  Their  lack  of  wisdom  leaves 
them  at  the  mercy  of  their  interests,  and  without  guidance 
their  constructiveness  may  turn  to  destructiveness.  When 
it  does  so,  it  is  because  of  the  neglect  of  their  adult  guides 
to  surround  them  with  plenty  of  suitable  material  for  con- 
struction or  transformation  adapted  to  their  stage  of 
development.  With  a  sufficient  variety  of  material  for 
constructive  plays  the  child  will  rarely  exhibit  destruc- 
tive tendencies,  and  when  he  does  so,  the  wisdom  of  his 
adult  guide  should  find  little  trouble  in  changing  his  in- 
terest centre  from  the  wrong  to  the  right.  The  skilful 
trainer  changes  the  interest  centre  without  making 
the  child  conscious  of  adult   interference. 

It  costs  little  to  supply  the  child  with  sand  and  blocks, 
and  soft  clay,  and  colors,  and  colored  paper,  and  blunt 
scissors  and  gum,  and  other  similar  materials — much  less 
than  is  usually  spent  for  toys;  yet  such  materials  would 
save  parents  from  much  worry,  and  help  them  to  get  rid 
of  the  wrong  ideals,  and  they  would  preserve  the  natural 
tendency  of  children  to  constructiveness,  and  afford  them 
an  opportunity  for  the  comfort  and  the  development  of 
real  self-activity. 

The  child's  most  dominant  tendency  is  activity  in  us- 
ing the  material  things  of  his  environment  to  transform 
them  into  new  forms  or  relationships  in  harmony  with  his 
own  plans.  This  tendency  is  intended  to  accomplish  four 
great  purposes  in  the  child's  development.  It  reveals  the 
child's  own  powers  to  himself,  it  develops  his  originality, 
it  trains  him  to  use  his  constructive  powers,  and  it  gives- 
him  the  habit  of  transforming  his  environment  to  suit 
his  own  plans.    If  he  is  not  supplied  with  suitable  mate- 


94  DICKENS  AS  AN  EDUCATOR. 

rial  to  play  with  he  will  appropriate  the  material  he  finds 
most  available.  In  this  way,  through  the  absolute  neglect 
of  his  adult  guides,  he  has  acquired  a  bad  reputation. 

The  instinct  that  leads  the  child  to  transform  his 
material  environment  should  lead  to  the  conscious  desire 
and  determination  to  improve  the  physical,  intellectual, 
and  spiritual  conditions  around  him  at  maturity.  It  is 
therefore  a  very  essential  element  in  his  training,  and  to 
check  or  neglect  it  may  weaken  and  warp  his  character 
as  much  as  it  was  intended  to  strengthen  and  direct  it. 

Thus  the  children  have  been  coerced  because  men 
believed  them  to  be  depraved,  and  the  coercion  has  devel- 
oped the  apparent  depravity. 

The  darkest  clouds  have  been  lifted  from  the  vision 
of  adults  and  from  the  lives  of  the  little  ones  by  the 
breaking  of  the  power  of  the  doctrine  of  child  depravity. 
The  teacher  especially  has  a  more  hopeful  field  opened 
to  him.  His  great  work  of  training  is  no  longer  restrict- 
ed to  putting  blinders  on  the  eyes  of  children  to  prevent 
their  seeing  evil,  and  bits  in  their  mouths  to  keep  them 
from  going  wrong.  He  believes  that  every  child  has  an 
element  of  divinity,  however  small  and  enfeebled  by 
heredity  or  encrusted  by  evil  environment,  and  that  his 
chief  duty  is  to  arouse  this  divinity  (his  selfhood  or  in- 
dividuality) to  consciousness  and  start  it  on  its  con- 
scious growth  toward  the  divine.  The  revelation  of  this 
new  and  grander  ideal  has  led  to  all  intelligent  child 
study  for  the  purpose  of  discovering  what  adulthood  can 
do,  and  especially  what  childhood  itself  can  do,  in  ac- 
complishing its  most  perfect  training  for  its  highest 
destiny. 

Dickens  expressed  his  general  faith  in  childhood  in 
Mrs.  Lirriper's  remark  to  the  Major  about  Jemmy: 

"  Ah,  !Major,"  I  says,  drying  my  eyes,  "  we  needn't  have 
been  afraid.  We  might  have  known  it.  Treachery  don't 
come  natural  to  beaming  youth;  but  trust  and  pity,  love 
and  constancy — they  do,  thank  God!  " 

He  taught  his  philosophy  of  the  origin  of  many  of  the 
evils  that  are  attributed  to  child  depravity  in  Nobody's 


THE   DOCTRINE   OF   CHILD   DEPRAVITY.         95 

Storj'.     "  Xobody  "  means  the  workingman.     He  says  to 
the  Master: 

"  The  evil  consequences  of  imperfect  instruction,  the 
evil  consequences  of  pernicious  neglect,  the  evil  conse- 
quences of  unnatural  restraint  and  the  denial  of  humaniz- 
ing enjoyments,  will  all  come  from  us,  and  none  of  them 
will  stop  with  us.  They  w^ill  spread  far  and  wide.  They 
always  do;  they  always  have  done — just  like  the  pestilence. 
I  understand  so  much,  I  think,  at  last." 

There  is  profoundness  in  these  doctrines. 


CHAPTER   V. 

CRAMMING. 

Although  Dickens  paid  much  more  attention  in  his 
writings  to  the  methods  of  training  than  to  the  methods 
of  teaching,  he  studied  the  methods  of  teaching  suffi- 
ciently to  recognise  some  of  their  gravest  defects.  Dom- 
bey  and  Son  is  unquestionably  the  greatest  book  ever 
written  to  expose  the  evils  of  cramming.  Doctor  Blim- 
ber,  Cornelia,  and  Mr.  Feeder,  when  closely  studied, 
represent  in  the  varied  phases  of  their  work  all  the  worst 
forms  of  cramming. 

Whenever  a  young  gentleman  was  taken  in  hand  by 
Doctor  Blimber,  he  might  consider  himself  sure  of  a  pretty 
tight  squeeze.  The  doctor  only  undertook  the  charge  of 
ten  young  gentlemen,  but  he  had  always  ready  a  supply 
of  learning  for  a  hundred,  on  the  lowest  estimate;  it  was 
at  once  the  business  and  delight  of  his  life  to  gorge  the 
unhappy  ten  with  it. 

In  fact,  Doctor  Blimber's  establishment  was  a  great 
hothouse,  in  which  there  was  a  forcing  apparatus  inces- 
santly at  work.  All  the  boys  blew  before  their  time.  Men- 
tal green  peas  were  produced  at  Christmas,  and  intellectual 
asparagus  all  the  year  round.  Mathematical  gooseberries 
(very  sour  ones  too)  were  common  at  untimely  seasons, 
and  from  mere  sprouts  of  bushes,  under  Doctor  Blimber's 
cultivation.  Every  description  of  Greek  and  Latin  vegeta- 
ble was  got  off  the  dryest  twigs  of  boys,  under  the  frostiest 
circumstances.  Nature  was  of  no  consequence  at  all.  No 
matter  what  a  young  gentleman  was  intended  to  bear, 
Doctor  Blimber  made  him  bear  to  pattern,  somehow  or 
other.  This  was  all  verj'  pleasant  and  ingenious,  but  the 
system  of  forcing  was  attended  with  its  usual  disadvan- 
tages.    There  was  not  the  right  taste  about  the  premature 

96 


CRAMMING.  97 

productions,  and  they  didn't  keep  well.  Moreover,  one 
young  gentleman,  with  a  swollen  nose  and  an  excessively 
large  head  (the  oldest  of  the  ten  who  had  "  gone  through  " 
everything)  suddenly  left  off  blowing  one  day,  and  re- 
mained in  the  establishment  a  mere  stalk.  And  people  did 
say  that  the  doctor  had  rather  overdone  it  with  young 
Toots,  and  that  when  he  began  to  have  whiskers  he  left  off 
having  brains. 

The  doctor  was  a  portly  gentleman  in  a  suit  of  black, 
with  strings  at  his  knees,  and  stockings  below  them.  He 
had  a  bald  head,  highly  polished;  a  deep  voice,  and  a  chin 
so  very  double  that  it  was  a  wonder  how  he  ever  managed 
to  shave  into  the  creases.  He  had  likewise  a  pair  of  little 
eyes  that  were  always  half  shut  up  and  a  mouth  that  was 
always  half  expanded  into  a  grin,  as  if  he  had,  that  mo- 
ment, posed  a  boy,  and  were  %vaiting  to  convict  him  from 
his  own  lips.  Insomuch  that  when  the  doctor  put  his 
right  hand  into  the  breast  of  his  coat,  and,  with  his  other 
hand  behind  him  and  a  scarcely  perceptible  wag  of  his 
head,  made  the  commonest  observation  to  a  nervous 
stranger,  it  was  like  a  sentiment  from  the  sphinx,  and 
settled  his  business. 

Miss  Blimber,  too,  although  a  slim  and  graceful  maid, 
did  no  soft  violence  to  the  gravity  of  the  house.  There 
was  no  light  nonsense  about  Miss  Blimber.  She  kept  her 
hair  short  and  crisp,  and  wore  spectacles.  She  was  dry 
and  sandy  wdth  working  in  the  graves  of  deceased  lan- 
guages. Xone  of  your  live  languages  for  Miss  Blimber. 
They  must  be  dead — stone  dead — and  then  Miss  Blimber 
dug  them  up  like  a  ghoul. 

As  to  Mr.  Feeder,  B.  A.,  Dr.  Blimber's  assistant,  he  was 
a  kind  of  human  barrel  organ,  with  a  little  list  of  tunes  at 
which  he  was  continually  working,  over  and  over  again, 
without  any  variation.  He  might  have  been  fitted  up  with 
a  change  of  barrels,  perhaps,  in  early  life,  if  his  destiny 
had  been  favourable;  but  it  had  not  been;  and  he  had  only 
one,  Avith  which,  in  a  monotonous  round,  it  was  his  occu- 
pation to  bewilder  the  young  ideas  of  Dr.  Blimber's  young 
gentlemen.  The  young  gentlemen  were  prematurely  full 
of  carking  anxieties.  They  knew  no  rest  from  the  pursuit 
of  stony-hearted  verbs,  savage  noun-substantives,  inflexi- 
ble syntactic  passages,  and  ghosts  of  exercises  that  ap- 
peared to  them  in  their  dreams.  Under  the  forcing  system, 
a   young  gentleman   usually   took   leave   of  his   spirits   in 


98  V'       DICKENS  ^S  AN   EDUCATOR. 

three  weeks.  He  had  all  the  care  of  the  world  on  his  head 
in  three  months.  He  conceived  bitter  sentiments  against 
his  parents  or  guardians  "an  four;  he  \vas  an  old  misan- 
thrope in  five;  envied  Curtius  1»1iai  blessed  refuge  in  the 
earth  in  six;  and  at  the  end  of  the  first  twelvemonth  had 
arrived  at  the  conclusion,  from  wjiifh»he  never  afterward 
departed,  that  all  the  fancies  of  the  poets,  and  lessons 
of  the  sages,  were  a  mere  collection  of  words  and  grammar, 
and  had  no  other  meaning  in  the  world. 

But  he  went  on  blow,  blow,  blowing,  in  the  doctor's  hot- 
house all  the  time;' and  the  doctor's  glory  an&  reputation 
were  great* when  he  took  his  wintry  growth  home  to  his 
relations  and  friends. 

Upon  the  doctor'^  doorsteps  one  day,  Paul  stood  with  a 
fluttering  heart,  and-,  with  his  small  right  hand  in  his 
father's.  His  other  hand  was  locked  in  that  of  Florence. 
How  tight  the  tiny  pressure  of  that  one;  and  how  loose 
and  cool  the  other! 

The  doctor  was  sitting  in  his  portentous  study,  with  a 
globe  at  each  knee,  books  all  round  him.  Homer  over  the 
door,  and  Minerv.a  on  the  mantelshelf.  "  And  how  do  you 
do,  sir?  "  he  said  to  Mr.  Dombey;  "  and  how  is  my  little 
friend?" 

"  Very  well  I  thank  you,  sir,"  returned  Paul,  answering 
the  clock  quite  as  much  as  the  doctor. 

"Ha!  "  said  Dr.  Blimber.  "Shall  we  make  a  man  of 
him?" 

"  Do  you  hear,  Paul?  "  added  Mr.  Dombey;  Paul  being 
silent. 

"  Shall  we  make  a  man  of  him?  "  repeated  the  doctor. 

"  I  had  rather  be  a  child,"  replied  Paul. 

Paul's  reply  is  one  of  the  most  touchingly  beautiful 
of  even  Dickens's  wonderful  expressions — wonderful  in 
their  exquisite  simplicity  and  their  profound  philosophy. 
When  this  book  was  written  Dickens  was  beginning  to 
get  the  conception  of  the  great  truth,  which  he  illus- 
trated at  length  in  Hard  Times  and  other  works,  that  it 
is  a  crime  against  a  child  to  rob  it  of  its  childhood. 

When  Doctor  Blimber  in  his  cold,  formal  manner 
asked  Paul  "  why  he  preferred  to  be  a  child,"  the  little 
fellow  was  unable  to  answer,  and  as  they  stared  at  him, 
he  at  length  put  his  hand  on  the  neck  of  Florence  and 
burst  into  tears. 


CRAMMIXG.  99 

"  !N[rs.  Pipchin,"  said  his  father  in  a  querulous  manner, 
"  I  am  really  very  sorry  to  see  this." 

'•  Never  mind,"  said  the  doctor  blandly,  nodding  his 
head  to  keep  Mrs.  Pipchin  back.  "  Xev-er  mind;  we  shall 
substitute  new  cares  and  new  impressions,  ^Ir.  Dombe;y, 
very  shortly.  You  would  still  wish  my  little  friend  to 
acquire " 

'*  Everything,  if  you  please,  doctor,"  returned  ^Ir,  Dom- 
bey  firmly. 

"  Yes,"  said  the  doctor,  who,  with  his  half-shut  eyes 
and  his  usual  smile,  seemed  to  survey  Paul  with  the  sort  of 
interest  that  might  attach  to  some  choice  little  animal  he 
was  going  to  stuff.  '"Yes,  exactly.  Hal  We  shall  impart 
a  great  variety  of  information  to  our  little  friend,  and 
bring  him  quickly  forward,  I  dare  say.  I  dare  say.  Quite 
a  virgin  soil,  I  believe  you  said,  Mr.  Dombey?  " 

On  leaving,  Mr.  Dombey  said  to  Paul: 

"  You'll  try  and  learn  a  great  deal  here,  and  be  a 
clever  man,  won't  you?  " 

"  I'll   try,"  returned   the   child   wearilj'. 

"And  you'll  soon  be  grown  up  now?"  said  Mr. 
Dombey. 

"Oh  I  very  soon  I  "  replied  the  child.  Once  more  the 
old.  old  look  passed  rapidly  across  his  features  like  a 
strange  light. 

After  his  father  and  Florence  had  left  him  the  doc- 
tor said  to  Cornelia : 

"  Cornelia,  Dombey  will  be  your  charge  at  first.  Bring 
him  on.  Cornelia,  bring  him  on.  Take  him  round  the  house, 
Cornelia,  and  familiarize  him  with  his  new  sphere.  Go 
with  that  young  lady,  Dombey." 

Cornelia  took  him  first  to  the  schoolroom.  Here  there 
were  eight  young  gentlemen  in  various  stages  of  mental 
prostration,  all  very  hard  at  work,  and  very  grave  indeed. 

Mr.  Feeder,  B.  A.,  had  his  Virgil  stop  on,  and  was  slow- 
ly grinding  that  tune  to  four  young  gentlemen.  Of  the  re- 
maining four,  two,  who  grasped  their  foreheads  convul- 
sively, were  engaged  in  solving  mathematical  problems; 
one,  with  his  face  like  a  dirty  window  from  much  crying, 
was  endeavouring  to  flounder  through  a  hopeless  number 
of  lines  before  dinner;  and  one  sat  looking  at  his  task  in 


100  DICKENS  AS  AN  EDUCATOR. 

stony  stupefaction  and  despair — which,  it  seemed,  had  been 
his  condition  ever  since  breakfast  time. 

After  being  shown  through  the  dormitories,  Cor- 
nelia told  him  dinner  would  be  ready  in  fifteen  minutes, 
and  that  in  the  meantime  he  had  better  go  into  the 
schoolroom  among  his  "  friends." 

His  friends  were  all  dispersed  about  the  room  except 
the  stony  friend,  who  remained  immovable.  Mr.  Feeder 
was  stretching  himself  in  his  gray  gown,  as  if,  regardless 
of  expense,  he  were  resolved  to  pull  the  sleeves  off. 

"  Heigh-ho-hum !  "  cried  Mr.  Feeder,  shaking  himself 
like  a  cart  horse  "  oh  dear  me,  dear  me!     Ya-a-a-ah!  " 

"  You  sleep  in  my  room,  don't  you?  "  asked  a  solemn 
young  gentleman,  whose  shirt  collar  curled  up  the  lobes 
of  his  ears. 

"  Master   Briggs?  "  inquired   Paul, 

"  Tozer,"  said  the  young  gentleman. 

Paul  answered  yes;  and  Tozer,  pointing  out  the  stony 
pupil,  said  that  it  was  Briggs.  Paul  had  already  felt  cer- 
tain that  it  must  be  either  Briggs  or  Tozer,  though  he 
didn't  know  why. 

"Is  yours  a  strong  constitution?"  inquired  Tozer. 

Paul  said  he  thought  not.  Tozer  replied  that  he 
thought  not  also,  judging  from  Paul's  looks,  and  that  it 
was  a  pity,  for  it  need  be.  He  then  asked  Paul  if  he  were 
going  to  begin  with  Cornelia ;  and  on  Paul  saying  "  Yes," 
all  the  young  gentlemen  (Briggs  excepted)  gave  a  low 
groan. 

At  dinner  no  boy  was  allowed  to  speak ;  every  one  was 
compelled  to  listen  to  the  tedious  discourse  of  Doctor 
Blimber  on  the  customs  of  the  Eomans.  The  cramming 
of  youth  was  continued  with  great  dignity  even  during 
meals.  One  boy,  Johnson,  was  unfortunate  enough  to 
choke  himself  by  too  suddenly  swallowing  his  water  in 
order  to  catch  Doctor  Blimber's  eye  when  he  began  an 
account  of  the  dinners  of  Vitellius;  and  to  punish  him 
for  his  breach  of  manners.  Doctor  Blimber  said  before 
the  boys  were  dismissed  from  the  table : 

"  Johnson  will  repeat  to-morrow  morning  before  break- 
fast, without  book,  and  from  the   Greek  Testament,   the 


CRAMMING.  lOl 

first  chapter  of  the  Epistle  of  Saint  Paui  to  the  fiphesiaris. 
We  will  resume  our  studies,  Mr.  Feeder,  in  half  an  hour." 

It  used  to  be  a  common  practice  to  cultivate  a  loving 
reverence  for  God  by  using  the  Bible  as  a  means  of  pun- 
ishment. This  was  in  harmony  with  the  old  educational 
and  the  old  theological  ideal  of  punishment,  as  the  su- 
preme means  available  for  guiding  children  properly.  It 
was  considered  a  perfectly  appropriate  use  of  the  best 
book  to  use  it  for  this  best  of  purposes. 

The  young  gentlemen  bowed  and  withdrew;  Mr.  Feeder 
did  likewise.  During  the  half  hour  the  young  gentlemen, 
broken  into  pairs,  loitered  arm  in  arm  up  and  down  a 
small  piece  of  ground  behind  the  house.  But  nothing  hap- 
pened so  vulgar  as  play.  Punctually  at  the  appointed  time 
the  gong  was  sounded,  and  the  studies,  under  the  joint 
auspices  of  Doctor  Blimber  and  Mr.  Feeder,  were  resumed. 

Tea  was  served  in  a  style  no  less  polite  than  dinner; 
and  after  tea  the  young  gentlemen,  rising  and  bowing  as 
before,  withdrew  to  fetch  up  the  unfinished  tasks  of  that 
day  or  to  get  up  the  already  looming  tasks  of  to-morrow. 
After  prayers  and  light  refreshments  at  eight  o'clock  or  so, 
the  "  young  gentlemen  "  were  sent  to  bed  by  the  doctor  ris- 
ing and  solemnly  saying,  "  We  will  resume  our  studies  at 
seven  to-morrow*';    the  pupils  bowed  again,  and  went  to  bed. 

In  the  confidence  of  their  own  room  upstairs,  Briggs 
said  his  head  ached  ready  to  split,  and  that  he  should  wish 
himself  dead  if  it  wasn't  for  his  mother  and  a  blackbird  he 
had  at  home.  Tozer  didn't  say  much,  but  he  sighed  a  good 
deal,  and  told  Paul  to  look  out,  for  his  turn  would  come 
to-morrow.  After  uttering  those  prophetic  words,  he  un- 
dressed himself  moodily  and  got  into  bed.  Briggs  was  in 
his  bed  too,  and  Paul  in  his  bed  too,  before  the  weak-ej'ed 
young  man  appeared  to  take  away  the  candle,  when  he 
wished  them  good-night  and  pleasant  dreams.  But  his 
benevolent  wishes  were  in  vain  as  far  as  Briggs  and  Tozer 
were  concerned;  for  Paul,  who  lay  awake  for  a  long  while, 
and  often  woke  afterward,  found  that  Briggs  was  ridden 
by  his  lesson  as  a  nightmare;  and  that  Tozer,  whose  mind 
was  affected  in  his  sleep  by  similar  causes,  in  a  minor 
degree,  talked  unknown  tongues,  or  scraps  of  Greek  and 
Latin — it  was  all  one  to  Paul — which,  in  the  silence  of 
night,  had  an  inexpressibly  wicked  and  guilty  effect. 
8 


102  D'lCKENS  AS  AN  EDUCATOR. 

As  f'aul'  was  going  downstairs  in  the  morning  Miss 
Blimber  called  him  into  her  room,  and,  pointing  to  a 
pile  of  new  books  on  her  table,  said: 

"  These  are  yours,  Dombey." 

"All  of  'em,  ma'am?"  said  Paul. 

"  Yes,"  returned  Miss  Blimber;  "  and  Mr.  Feeder  will 
look  you  out  some  more  very  soon,  if  you  are  as  studious 
as  I  expect  you  will  be,  Dombey." 

"  Thank  you,  ma'am,"  said  Paul. 

"  I  am  going  out  for  a  constitutional,"  resumed  Miss 
Blimber;  "  and  while  I  am  gone — that  is  to  say,  in  the  in- 
terval between  this  and  breakfast,  Dombey — I  wish  you  to 
read  over  what  I  have  marked  in  these  books,  and  to  tell 
me  if  you  quite  understand  what  you  have  got  to  learn. 
Don't  lose  time,  Dombey,  for  you  have  none  to  spare,  but 
take  them  downstairs,  and  begin  directly." 

"  Yes,  ma'am,"  answered  Paul. 

There  were  so  many  of  them,  that  although  Paul  put 
one  hand  under  the  bottom  book  and  his  other  hand  and 
his  chin  on  the  top  book,  and  hugged  them  all  closely,  the 
middle  book  slipped  out  before  he  reached  the  door,  and 
then  they  all  tumbled  down  on  the  floor.  Having  at  last 
amassed  the  whole  library  and  climbed  into  his  place,  he 
fell  to  work,  encouraged  by  a  remark  from  Tozer  to  the 
effect  that  he  "was  in  for  it  now";  which  was  the  only 
interruption  he  received  till  breakfast  time.  At  that  meal, 
for  which  he  had  no  appetite,  everything  was  quite  as  sol- 
emn and  genteel  as  at  the  others;  and  when  it  was  finished, 
he  followed  Miss  Blimber  upstairs. 

"  Now,  Dombey,"  said  Miss  Blimber,  "  how  have  you 
got  on  with  those  books?  " 

They  comprised  a  little  English,  and  a  deal  of  Latin — 
names  of  things,  declensions  of  articles  and  substantives,' 
exercises  thereon,  and  preliminary  rules — a  trifle  of  orthog- 
raphy, a  glance  at  ancient  history,  a  wink  or  two  at  mod- 
ern ditto,  a  few  tables,  two  or  three  weights  and  measures, 
and  a  little  general  information.  When  poor  Paul  had 
spelled  out  number  two,  he  found  he  had  no  idea  of  num- 
ber one;  fragments  whereof  afterward  obtruded  them- 
selves into  number  three,  which  slided  into  number  four, 
which,  grafted  itself  on  to  number  two.  So  that  whether 
twentj'  Romuluses  made  a  Remus,  or  hie  hsec  hoc  was  troy 
weight,  or  a  verb  always  agreed  with  an  ancient  Briton,  or 


CRAMMING.  lOa 

three  times  four  was  Taurus  a  bull,  were  open  questions 
with  him. 

"Oh,  Dombey,  Dombey!  "  said  Miss  Blimber,  "this  is 
very  shocking." 

So  Paul's  cramming  went  on  day  by  day.  The  deli- 
cate little  boy,  who  should  not  have  been  sent  to  school 
at  all,  was  forced  to  memorize  confused  masses  of  words 
that  had  no  meaning  to  him,  but  he  learned  to  repeat  the 
words,  and  so  got  the  credit  of  doing  well,  and  because 
he  learned  easily  was  driven  harder  and  harder.  The 
more  easily  he  carried  his  burden  the  higher  it  was  piled 
on  his  back. 

It  was  not  that  Miss  Blimber  meant  to  be  too  hard 
upon  him,  or  that  Doctor  Blimber  meant  to  bear  too  heavily 
on  the  young  gentlemen  in  general.  Cornelia  merely  held 
the  faith  in  which  she  had  been  bred;  and  the  doctor,  in 
some  partial  confusion  of  his  ideas,  regarded  the  young 
gentlemen  as  if  they  were  all  doctors,  and  were  born 
grown  up.  Comforted  by  the  applause  of  the  young  gen- 
tlemen's nearest  relations,  and  urged  on  by  their  blind 
vanity  and  ill-considered  haste,  it  would  have  been  strange 
if  Doctor  Blimber  had  discovered  his  mistake,  or  trimmed 
his  swelling  sails  to  any  other  tack. 

Thus  in  the  case  of  Paul.  When  Doctor  Blimber  said  he 
made  great  progress,  and  was  naturally  clever,  Mr.  Dombey 
was  more  bent  than  ever  on  his  being  forced  and  crammed. 
In  the  case  of  Briggs,  when  Doctor  Blimber  reported  that 
he  did  not  make  great  progress  yet,  and  was  not  naturally 
clever,  Briggs  senior  was  inexorable  in  the  same  purpose. 
In  short,  however  high  and  false  the  temperature  at  which 
the  doctor  kept  his  hothouse,  the  owners  of  the  plants  were 
always  ready  to  lend  a  helping  hand  at  the  bellows  and 
to  stir  the  fire. 

When  the  midsummer  vacation  approached,  no  indecent 
manifestations  of  joy  were  exhibited  by  the  leaden-eyed 
young  gentlemen  assembled  at  Doctor  Blimber's.  Any 
such  violent  expression  as  "  breaking  up  "  would  have  been 
quite  inapplicable  to  that  polite  establishment.  The  young 
gentlemen  oozed  away,  semi-annualU^  to  their  own  homes; 
but  they  never  broke  up.  They  would  have  scorned  the 
action. 

Tozer,  who  was  constantly  galled  and  tormented  by  a 


104  DICKENS  AS  AN   EDUCATOR. 

starched  white  cambric  neckerchief,  which  he  wore  at  the 
express  desire  of  Mrs.  Tozer,  his  parent,  who,  designing 
him  for  the  Church,  was  of  opinion  that  he  couldn't  be  in 
that  forward  state  of  preparation  too  soon — Tozer  said,  in- 
deed, that  choosing  between  two  evils,  he  thought  he  would 
rather  stay  where  he  was,  than  go  home.  However  incon- 
sistent this  declaration  might  appear  with  that  passage  in 
Tozer's  essay  on  the  subject,  wherein  he  had  observed  "  that 
the  thoughts  of  home  and  all  its  recollections  awakened  in 
his  mind  the  most  pleasing  emotions  of  anticipation  and 
delight,"  and  had  also  likened  himself  to  a  Roman  general, 
flushed  with  a  recent  victory  over  the  Iceni,  or  laden  with 
Carthaginian  spoil,  advancing  within  a  few  hours'  march 
of  the  Capitol,  presupposed,  for  the  purposes  of  the  simile, 
to  be  the  dwelling  place  of  Mrs.  Tozer,  still  it  was  very  sin- 
cerely made.  For  it  seemed  that  Tozer  had  a  dreadful 
uncle,  who  not  only  volunteered  examinations  of  him,  in 
the  holidays,  on  abstruse  points,  but  twisted  innocent 
events  and  things,  and  wrenched  them  to  the  same  fell 
purpose.  So  that  if  this  uncle  took  him  to  the  play,  or,  on 
a  similar  pretence  of  kindness,  carried  him  to  see  a  giant, 
or  a  dwarf,  or  a  conjurer,  or  anything,  Tozer  knew  he  had 
read  up  some  classical  allusion  to  the  subject  beforehand, 
and  was  thrown  into  a  state  of  mortal  apprehension;  not 
foreseeing  where  he  might  break  out,  or  what  authority  he 
might  not  quote  against  him. 

As  to  Briggs,  his  father  made  no  show  of  artifice  about 
it.  He  never  would  leave  him  alone.  So  numerous  and 
severe  were  the  mental  trials  of  that  unfortunate  youth 
in  vacation  time,  that  the  friends  of  the  family  (then  resi- 
dent near  Bayswater,  London)  seldom  approached  the  orna- 
mental piece  of  water  in  Kensington  Gardens  without  a 
vague  expectation  of  seeing  Master  Briggs's  hat  floating  on 
the  surface  and  an  unfinished  exercise  lying  on  the  bank. 
Briggs,  therefore,  was  not  at  all  sanguine  on  the  subject  of 
holidays;  and  these  two  sharers  of  little  Paul's  bedroom 
were  so  fair  a  sample  of  the  young  gentlemen  in  general, 
that  the  most  elastic  among  them  contemplated  the  arrival 
of  those  festive  periods  with  genteel  resignation. 

Dickens  did  not  wish  to  lay  all  the  blame  for  the 
stupid  process  of  cramming  on  the  teachers.  He  prop- 
erly revealed  to  parents  that  they  were  even  more  to 
blame  than  the  teachers,  because  they  got  what  they  de- 


CRAMMING.  105 

manded.  Doctor  Blimber  summed  up  the  whole  philoso- 
phy of  the  adulthood  of  his  time  in  regard  to  a  child's 
education  when  he  said  to  his  daughter,  "  Bring  him  on, 
Cornelia !     Bring  him  on !  " 

The  standard  of  knowledge  cramming  fixed  by  par- 
ents and  school  boards  is  changing  very  slowly.  Even 
yet  a  teacher's  success  is  measured  and  his  chances 
of  re-engagement  decided  in  most  places  by  the  an- 
swer to  the  question,  "  How  does  he  bring  the  children 
on?" 

When  asked  by  Doctor  Blimber  what  he  wished  his 
little  sickly  son  to  learn,  Mr.  Dombey  answered,  "  Oh, 
everything." 

When  Paul  learned  easily,  his  father  pressed  for  more 
studies;  and  because  Briggs  was  dull,  his  father  demand- 
ed that  he  be  driven  harder  at  school,  and  made  the  poor 
boy's  life  miserable  at  home  by  tedious  lessons  during 
the  holidays. 

The  uncle  who  made  Tozer  wretched  by  asking  him 
unexpected  questions  on  all  occasions  is  a  type  of  an 
ogre  who  sometimes  blights  the  lives  of  children  still. 

Dickens  had  a  beautiful  sympathy  with  childhood  in 
its  sufferings  not  merely  on  account  of  deliberate  cruelty 
and  neglect,  but  because  of  the  burdens  placed  upon  it 
by  adults  who,  with  the  best  intentions,  robbed  it  of  its 
natural  rights  of  joyousness  and  freedom. 

Whenever  Doctor  Blimber  was  informed  that  Paul 
was  "  old-fashioned "  or  "  peculiar,"  he  said,  as  he  had 
said  when  Paul  first  came,  that  study  would  do  much; 
and  he  also  said,  as  he  said  on  that  occasion,  "  Bring 
him  on,  Cornelia !     Bring  him  on !  " 

Just  before  the  close  of  the  term  Paul  fainted  and 
had  to  be  carried  to  his  room,  and  after  an  examination 
the  physician  advised  Doctor  Blimber  to  "  release  the 
young  gentleman  from  his  books  just  now,  the  vacation 
being  so  near  at  hand." 

It  was  so  very  considerate  to  release  him  from  study, 
when  he  was  utterly  unable  to  study  any  longer. 

At  the  close  of  the  school  party  when  he  was  leav- 
ing— 


106  DICKENS   AS  AN  EDUCATOR. 

Cornelia,  taking-  both  Paul's  hands  in  hers,  said,  "  Dom- 
bej',  Dombey,  you  have  always  been  my  favourite  pupil. 
God  bless  you!  "  And  it  showed,  Paul  thoug-ht,  how  easily 
one  might  do  injustice  to  a  person;  for  ]Miss  Blimber  meant 
it — thoug-h  she  was  a  Forcer. 

Paul  never  returned  to  school.  His  life  was  sacri- 
ficed to  his  father's  desire  to  have  him  "  learn  every- 
thing." 

In  a  brief  look  at  the  results  of  Doctor  Blimber's 
teaching,  Dickens  tersely  outlines  three  common  results 
of  cramming: 

]Mr.  Tozer,  now  a  young  man  of  lofty  stature,  in  Wel- 
lington boots,  was  so  extremely  full  of  antiquity  as  to  be 
nearly  on  a  par  with  a  genuine  ancient  Roman  in  his  knowl- 
edge of  English;  a  triumph  that  affected  his  good  parents 
with  the  tenderest  emotions,  and  caused  the  father  and 
mother  of  Mr.  Briggs  (whose  learning,  like  an  ill-arranged 
luggage,  was  so  tightly  packed  that  he  couldn't  get  at  any- 
thing he  w^anted)  to  hide  their  diminished  heads.  The  fruit 
laboriously  gathered  from  the  tree  of  knowledge  by  this 
latter  young  gentleman,  in  fact,  had  been  subjected  to  so 
much  pressure,  that  it  had  become  a  kind  of  intellectual 
Norfolk  Biffin,  and  had  nothing  of  its  original  form  or 
flavour  remaining.  ^Master  Bitherstone  now,  on  whom  the 
forcing  system  had  the  happier  and  not  uncommon  effect 
of  leaving  no  impression  whatever,  when  the  forcing  ap- 
paratus ceased  to  work  was  in  a  much  more  comfortable 
plight;  and  being  then  on  shipboard,  bound  for  Bengal, 
found  himself  forgetting  with  such  admirable  rapidity, 
that  it  was  doubtful  whether  his  declensions  of  noun-sub- 
stantives would  hold  out  to  the  end  of  the  voyage. 

Dickens,  in  his  very  able  description  of  Doctor  Blim- 
ber's school,  directs  attention  to  nearly  every  phase  of 
the  evils  of  cramming.  Toots  is  an  illustration  of  the 
destruction  of  mental  power  by  the  "  hard  mathematics  " 
and  other  subjects,  when  they  are  taught  improperly. 
It  is  a  serious  result  of  an  educational  system,  when 
the  brightest  young  men  "cease  to  have  brains  when 
they  begin  to  have  whiskers." 

Paul's  experience  is  used  to  show  the  terrible  phys- 


CRAMMING.  107 

ical  evils  of  cramming  in  any  life,  especially  in  the  life 
of  a  delicate  child.  Paul  was  killed  by  his  father  and 
Doctor  Blimber.     He  should  have  lived. 

Cornelia's  aversion  to  live  languages  and  her  delight 
in  "  digging  up  the  dead  languages  like  a  ghoul,"  and  the 
address  presented  to  Doctor  Blimber  "  which  contained 
very  little  of  the  mother  tongue,  but  fifteen  quotations 
from  the  Latin  and  seven  from  the  Greek,"  were  in- 
tended as  a  protest  against  paying  too  much  attention 
to  the  classics  to  the  neglect  of  other  studies.  He  re- 
turned to  this  subject  again  in  Bleak  House.  Richard 
Carstone  "  could  make  Latin  verses,"  but  although  his 
powers  were  naturally  excellent  he  was  a  complete  failure 
in  life.  He  was  not  educated  properly,  notwithstanding 
his  ability  to  make  Latin  verses. 

Mr.  Feeder  is  the  perfect  tj'pe  of  a  mechanical  cram- 
mer, "  a  sort  of  barrel  organ  with  a  little  list  of  tunes 
at  which  he  was  continually  working,  over  and  over 
again,  without  any  variation."  What  suggestiveness 
there  is  in  the  sentence  "  Mr.  Feeder  had  his  Virgil 
stop  on,  and  was  grinding  that  tune  to  four  young  gen- 
tlemen " ! 

"  Bewilder  the  young  ideas  of  Doctor  Blimber's  young 
gentlemen,"  used  to  be  considered  too  strong  a  criticism, 
but  modem  psychology  fully  sustains  Dickens  in  his  view. 
"  Arrested  development  "  is  well  understood  now  to  re- 
sult from  too  much  grinding  at  any  one  subject  or  depart- 
ment of  a  subject,  from  the  monotonous  drill  of  the 
crammer,  or  from  directing  the  child's  attention  too 
much  to  any  one  study. 

The  influence  of  uninteresting  study  on  the  spirits] 
was  clear  to  Dickens.  There  is  inspiration  and  physical  I 
advantage  of  a  decided  character  in  the  successful  study 
of  an  interesting  subject — interesting  to  the  child,  of 
course — if  the  process  of  study  includes  the  true  self- 
activity  of  the  child.  There  is  blight,  and  nervous  irrita- 
tion, and  "  carking  anxiety,"  if  the  child  works  under 
compulsion  at  the  dead  matter  of  study.  ISTo  wonder  the 
young  gentlemen  at  Doctor  Blim.ber's  took  leave  of  their 
spirits  in  three  weeks,  and  passed  through  the  subsequent 


108  DICKENS  AS  AN  EDUCATOR. 

stages  of  deeper  gloom  described  by  Dickens.    They  had 
none  of  the  joy  of  living  interest  in  their  study,  none 
of    the    vital    enthusiasm    connected    with    independent 
thought,  none  of  the  health  that  comes  from  pleasant 
occupation,  none  of  the  happiness  that  is  found  in  self- 
activity  alone. 
>*         One  of  the  best  criticisms  of  wrong  methods  of  teach- 
ing  done  by  Mr.  Feeder  is  the  criticism  of  the  method  of 
teaching  literature.     "  At   the   end   of  the  first   twelve- 
month the  boys  had  arrived  at  the  conclusion,  from  which 
jthey  never  afterward  departed,  that  all  the  fancies   of 
I  the  poets,  and  the  lessons  of  the  sages,  were  a  mere  col- 
'  lection  of  words  and  grammar,  and  had  no  other  meaning 
in  the  world."    There  are  high  schools  yet  in  which  more 
attention  is  paid  to  the  "  words  and  grammar  "  than  to 
the  sacred  and  inspiring  thought  of  the  author. 

A  professor  in  one  of  the  leading  educational  insti- 
tutions of  America  travelled  in  Scotland  with  his  daugh- 
ters. They  were  graduates  of  a  high  school.  He  ob- 
served with  deep  regret  that  they  visited  the  mountains, 
and  valleys,  and  rivers,  and  islands,  and  battlefields,  and 
cathedrals  of  the  land,  that  to  him  had  been  filled  with 
sacred  interests  by  the  writings  of  Scott,  and  saw  them 
all  without  emotion.  One  day  he  said  to  them :  "  Why 
are  you  not  interested  here?  To  me  every  foot  of  ground 
here  is  full  of  living  memories.  Scott  describes  it  in  The 
Lady  of  the  Lake."  One  of  them  explained  the  reason. 
"  Oh !  "  she  said,  "  we're  sick  of  Scott ;  we  had  enough  of 
him  in  the  high  school." 

There  are  Feeders  yet  who  profane  the  temple  of  lit- 
erature; who  never  connect  the  souls  of  their  pupils 
with  the  soul  life  of  the  authors  they  study.  Very  few 
of  the  graduates  of  high  schools  have  learned  the  high 
art  of  loving  literature  for  its  beauty  and  ennobling 
thought,  fewer  still  have  learned  how  to  dig  successfully 
in  the  rich  mines  of  wealth  that  literature  contains,  and 
even  a  smaller  number  have  learned  to  transmute  the  reve- 
lations of  literature  into  character  and  new  revelations 
in  life  or  richer  literature  for  the  happiness  and  culture  of 
coming  generations.    We  may  yet  learn  from  Dickens. 


H 


CRAMMING.  10^ 

Tozer  became  an  antique  pedant,  learned  but  not  edu- 
cated. 

Briggs  grew  to  be  dull  and  heavy-witted,  and  had  his 
"  knowledge  so  tightly  packed  that  he  couldn't  get  at 
anything  he  wanted.'' 

Bitherstone  was  one  of  the  few  fortunate  fellows 
who  are  gifted  with  natural  power  to  pass  through  the 
cramming  system  without  being  affected  seriously  in  any 
way.  They  get  little,  if  any,  good,  and  they  speedily 
forget  the  wrongs  inflicted  upon  them  and  the  learning 
with  which  their  teachers  attempted  to  cram  them. 

Briggs  showed  the  evil  effects  of  cramming  in  the 
destruction  of  individuality.  "  His  fruit  had  nothing  of 
its  original  flavour  remaining."  This  is  one  of  the  gen- 
eral charges  made  against  Doctor  Blimber's  forcing  es- 
tablishment, or  hothouse.  "  Nature  was  of  no  conse- 
quence at  all.  No  matter  what  a  young  gentleman  was 
intended  to  bear.  Doctor  Blimber  made  him  bear  to  pat- 
tern somehow  or  other."  The  destruction  of  selfhood 
was  the  great  evil  of  the  old  system  of  teaching. 

Another  important  criticism  made  by  Dickens  of  the 
hothouse  system  is  worthy  of  special  attention  by  edu- 
cators. He  recognised  the  evil  effects  of  giving  any 
study  or  work  to  children,  that  is  naturally  adapted  to  a 
later  stage  of  their  development.  The  development  of 
children  is  always  arrested  when  the  work  of  a  higher 
stage  is  forced  into  a  lower  stage  of  their  growth.  The 
tiue  evolution  of  the  child  consists  in  a  growth  through 
a  series  of  progressive  and  interdependent  stages.  This 
was  not  recognised  in  the  educational  system  Dickens 
desired  to  improve.  It  is  not  yet  recognised  to  a  very 
large  extent  in  practice.  "  All  the  boys  blew  before  their 
time,"  in  Doctor  Blimber's  school.  "  The  doctor,  in  some 
partial  confusion  of  ideas,  regarded  the  young  gentle- 
men as  if  they  were  all  doctors,  and  were  born  grown  up." 

Dickens  was  so  careful  to  make  his  names  and  terms 
express  volumes  of  meaning  that  he  probably  meant  the 
phrase  "  mathematical  gooseberries "  to  be  especially 
significant.  The  fact  that  they  were  grown  on  "  mere 
sprouts  of  bushes,"  and  as  a  consequence  were  "  very  sour 


110  DICKENS  AS  AN  EDUCATOR. 

ones,  too,"  reveals  the  philosophy  since  made  so  clear  by 
Doctor  Harris,  that  early  "  drilling "  in  arithmetic  has 
been  one  of  the  prolific  causes  of  arrested  development 
in  children.  The  appeal  against  the  common  practice 
of  growing  "every  description  of  Greek  and" Latin  vege- 
table "  from  "  dry  twigs  of  hoys  "  was  comprehensive  and 
timely.  They  were  not  merely  twigs,  but  dry  twigs  in 
whom  the  sap  had  not  begun  to  circulate  freely.  ISTo 
expressions,  no  volumes,  could  state  the  evil  of  untimely 
cramming  more  clearly  than  this  group  of  phrases  used 
by  Dickens  in  describing  Doctor  Blimber's  school. 

"  The  frostiest  circumstances "  is  another  of  the 
thought-laden  phrases,  which  was  evidently  intended  to 
warn  teachers  against  the  mistake  of  trying  to  produce 
any  intellectual  fruit  at  untimely  periods  of  the  child's 
development.  "  Wintry  growth  "  means  unseasonable  or 
untimely  development. 

The  condemnation  of  the  feeling  shown  by  Paul  in 
parting  from  Florence,  and  the  Doctor's  cold-blooded  ob- 
servation, "  Never  mind ;  we  shall  substitute  new  cares 
and  new  impressions,  Mr.  Dombey,  very  shortly,"  were 
intended  to  show  how  utterly  the  knowledge  cramming 
ideal  had  prevented  the  recognition  of  the  fundamental 
fact  that  feeling  is  the  basis  and  the  battery  power  of 
intellectual  force  and  energy.  The  same  principle  is 
taught  by  Cornelia's  shock  at  Paul's  aifection  for  old 
Glubb,  and  her  father's  summary  settlement  of  the  case, 
when  he  realized  that  the  little  child  was  intensely  affec- 
tionate and  sympathetic.  "  Ha !  "  said  the  Doctor,  shak- 
ing his  head,  "  this — is — bad,  but  study  will  do  much." 

Dickens  deals  in  a  most  thorough  manner  with  the 
absolute  wickedness  of  neglecting,  or  attempting  to 
smother  feeling  in  the  training  and  education  of  children 
in  Hard  Times.  He  undoubtedly  received  his  clear  con- 
ceptions relating  to  the  intellectual  value  of  feeling  from 
Proebel's  writings. 

The  bad  effects  of  cramming  on  the  physical  consti- 
tution of  children  are  pointed  out  in  "  the  convulsive 
grasping  of  their  foreheads  "  by  the  two  boys  engaged 
in  solving  mathematical  problems.     Nervous  exhaustion 


CRAMMING.  Ill 

is  here  plainly  indicated.  They  were  "  very  feverish," 
too,  and  poor  Briggs  was  in  even  a  worse  condition,  for 
"  he  was  in  a  state  of  stupefaction  and  was  flabby  and  quite 
cold."  Both  Briggs  and  Tozer  frightened  Paul  the  first 
night  he  tried  to  sleep  in  their  room  by  talking  Latin 
and  Greek  in  their  dreams.  Paul  thought  they  were 
swearing.  Education  should  never  interfere  with  a 
child's  sleep,  either  with  its  soundness  or  its  duration. 
Even  the  boys  told  Paul  on  the  first  day  of  his  school 
life  that  he  would  need  a  good  constitution  to  withstand 
the  strain  at  Doctor  Blimber's. 

The  exhaustive  and  exasperating  practice  of  piling 
up  arrears  of  work,  so  naturally  connected  with  cram- 
ming— in  fact,  so  essential  a  part  of  the  unnatural  pro- 
cess— conies  in  for  its  share  of  condemnation,  too.  One 
of  the  boys,  "  whose  face  was  like  a  dirty  window,  from 
much  crying,  was  endeavouring  to  flounder  through  a 
hopeless  number  of  lines."  The  friends  of  Briggs  were 
constantly  in  terror  "  lest  they  should  find  his  hat  float- 
ing on  a  pond  and  an  unfinished  exercise  on  the  bank." 

The  same  practice  of  charging  up  arrears  of  work  is 
condemned  in  David  Copperfield  by  associating  it  with 
the  hateful  Iturdstones. 

The  crammer's  absolute  indifference  and  contempt  for 
any  semblance  of  correlation  in  studies  is  revealed  by 
Cornelia's  action  in  giving  him  a  collection  of  books  on 
his  first  morning  before  school  with  instructions  to  study 
them  at  the  places  she  had  marked  for  him.  Xo  wonder 
that  "  when  poor  Paul  had  spelled  out  number  two  he 
found  he  had  no  idea  of  number  one ;  fragments  whereof 
afterward  obtruded  themselves  into  number  three,  which 
sidled  into  number  four,  which  grafted  itself  on  to  num- 
ber two — so  that  whether  twenty  Romuluses  made  a 
Remus,  or  hie  hsec  hoc  was  troy  weight,  or  a  verb  always 
agreed  with  an  ancient  Briton,  or  three  times  four  was 
Taurus,  a  bull,  were  open  questions  with  him." 

AYhenever  words  are  given  before  thought,  or  as  a 
substitute  for  thought,  and  without  definite  relationship 
to  the  thought  already  in  the  mind,  they  lie  in  the  mind 
as  unrelated,  and  therefore  unavailable  knowledge. 


112  DICKENS  AS  AN  EDUCATOR. 

A  boy  in  London  had  received  considerable  historical 
teaching,  and  his  mind  had  made  a  certain  kind  of  unity 
out  of  the  confused  mass.  When  asked  at  his  final  ex- 
amination "  What  he  knew  about  Cromwell,"  he  an- 
swered :  "  Cromwell  interfered  with  the  Irish,  and  he  was 
put  in  prison.  When  he  was  in  prison  he  wrote  the  Pil- 
grim's Progress,  and  he  afterward  married  Mrs.  O'Shea." 

This  was  equalled  by  the  other  boy  who  wrote  at  an 
examination :  "  Wolsey  was  a  famous  general  who  fought 
in  the  Crimean  War,  and  who,  after  being  decapitated 
several  times,  said  to  Cromwell :  '  If  I  had  served  you  as 
you  have  served  me  I  would  not  have  been  deserted  in 
my  old  age.' " 

Paul's  studies  were  always  dark  and  crooked  to  him 
till  Florence  bought  copies  ox  his  books  and  studied 
them,  and  by  patient  sympathy  made  all  that  had  been 
dark  light,  and  all  that  had  been  crooked  straight. 

The  habit  of  giving  definitions  of  abstractions  to 
children,  and  expecting  the  definitions  alone  to  be  com- 
prehended by  children,  is  held  up  to  deserved  ridicule 
in  the  explanation  of  the  word  "  analysis  "  to  Paul,  when 
Cornelia  proposed  to  read  the  analysis  of  his  character. 

"  If  my  recollection  serves  me,  the  word  analysis,  as 
opposed  to  synthesis,  is  thus  defined  by  Walker :  '  The 
resolution  of  an  object,  whether  of  the  senses  or  of  the 
intellect,  into  its  first  elements.'  As  opposed  to  synthesis, 
you  observe.    Now  you  know  what  analysis  is,  Dombey." 

How  perfectly  simple  and  clear  and  expanding  this 
would  be  to  a  child's  mind!  Dickens  says:  "Dombey 
didn't  seem  absolutely  blinded  by  the  light  let  in  upon  his 
intellect,  but  he  made  Miss  Blimber  a  little  bow." 

What  loose  habits  of  thought,  and  how  much  hy- 
pocrisy and  mental  vagueness  are  caused  by  using  words 
instead  of  realities  in  the  early  teaching  of  children,  and 
then  asking  them  if  they  understand  what  we  have  been 
telling  them !  The  "  little  bow  "  has  usually  a  demoral- 
izing effect. 

It  is  a  mere  farce  to  call  the  committing  to  memory 
of  definitions  "  education." 

Whatever    the    subjects,    it    is    a    dwarfing    process. 


CRAMMING.  113 

whether  the  definitions  are  memorized  at  home  or  at 
school,  silently,  by  oral  repetition,  or  by  singing  them.. 
All  definition  learning  as  the  origin  of  thought  is  cer- 
tain to  destroy  interest  and  arrest  development  and  lead 
to  inaccuracy  of  thought.  Miss  Le  Row's  collection  of 
blunders  made  by  children  could  never  have  been  made 
if  the  children  had  been  taught  properly. 

Such  mistakes  as  "  The  body  is  mostly  composed  of 
water,  and  about  one  half  of  avaricious  tissue "  or 
"  Parasite,  a  kind  of  umbrella,"  or  "  Emphasis,  putting 
more  distress  on  one  word  than  on  another,"  should 
suggest  to  teachers  the  absurdity  of  committing  defini- 
tions to  memory.  It  is  one  of  the  weakest  forms  of 
cramming,  and  is  most  ridiculous  and  least  useful  when 
the  memorizing  is  done  by  simultaneous  oral  repetition. 

Hard  Times  exposes  the  evils  of  cramming  in  the 
teaching  practised  in  the  normal  school  in  which  Mr. 
M'Choakumchild  was  trained,  and  in  the  definition  repe- 
tition as  given  by  Bitzer,  and  so  highly  praised  by  Mr. 
Gradgrind : 

"Bitzer,  your  definition  of  a  horse:  " 

"  Quadruped,  graminivorous.  Forty  teeth,  namely, 
twenty-four  grinders,  four  eyeteeth,  and  twelve  incisors. 
Sheds  coat  in  the  spring;  in  marshy  countries  sheds  hoofs, 
too.  Hoofs  hard,  but  requiring  to  be  shod  with  iron.  Age 
known  by  marks  in  mouth." 

How  clear  this  would  make  the  conception  of  a  horse 
to  a  man  who  had  never  seen  one !  Sissy  Jupe,  too,  is 
used  to  show  the  failure  of  cramming  to  educate  a  girl 
of  quick  intellect  and  strong  emotions.  She  could  not 
be  crammed. 

M'Choakumchild  reported  that  she  had  a  very  dense 
head  for  figures;  that,  once  posessed  with  a  general  idea 
of  the  globe,  she  took  the  smallest  conceivable  interest  in 
its  exact  measurements;  that  she  was  extremely  slow  in 
the  acquisition  of  dates,  unless  some  pitiful  incident  hap- 
pened to  be  connected  therewith;  that  she  would  burst  into 
tears  on  being  required  (by  the  mental  process)  immedi- 
ately to  name  the  cost  of  two  hundred  and  forty-seven 


114  DICKENS  AS  AN  EDUCATOR. 

muslin  caps  at  fourteenpence  half-penny;  that  she  was  as 
low  down  in  the  school  as  low  as  could  be;  that  after  eight 
weeks  of  induction  into  the  elements  of  political  economy, 
she  had  only  yesterday  been  set  right  by  a  prattler  three 
feet  high,  for  returning  to  the  question,  "  What  is  the  first 
principle  of  this  science?  "  the  absurd  answer,  "  To  do 
unto  others  as  I  would  that  they  should  do  unto  me." 

Mr.  Gradgrind  observed,  shaking  his  head,  that  all  this 
was  very  bad;  that  it  showed  the  necessity  of  infinite  grind- 
ing at  the  mill  of  knowledge  as  per  system,  schedule,  blue 
book,  report,  and  tabular  statements  A  to  Z;  and  that  Jupe 
"  must  be  kept  to  it."  So  Jupe  was  kept  to  it,  and  became 
low-spirited,  but  no  wiser. 

Dickens  makes  the  artist  in  Somebody's  Luggage  say : 

"  Who  are  you  passing  every  day  at  your  competitive 
excruciations?  The  fortunate  candidates  whose  heads  and 
livers  you  have  turned  upside  down  for  life?  Not  you,  you 
are  really  passing  the  crammers  and  coaches." 

And  Jemmy  Lirriper,  in  describing  his  teacher,  said: 
"  Oh,  he  was  a  Tartar !  Keeping  the  boys  up  to  the  mark, 
holding  examinations  once  a  month,  lecturing  upon  all 
sorts  of  subjects  at  all  sorts  of  times,  and  knowing  every- 
thing in  the  world  out  of  a  book." 

Dickens  saw  the  evils  of  competitive  examinations 
more  clearly  than  many  educators  do  two  generations 
after  him. 

When  educators  in  schools,  colleges,  and  universities 
learn  a  better  way  to  promote  pupils,  to  classify  men  and 
women  and  to  rank  them  at  graduation,  than  by  holding 
promotion  and  graduation  examinations  cramming  will 
be  of  no  use,  and  there  shall  be  no  more  cramming. 

Dickens  was  right  as  usual.  The  crammers  and 
coaches  are  those  who  are  tested  by  "  competitive  excru- 
ciations " ;  and  how  those  who  force  through  most  stu- 
dents boast  and  strut  and  lord  it  over  the  less  successful 
crammers  and  coaches  on  commencement  days  and  other 
public  occasions !  What  a  misleading  mockery  examina- 
tions are  as  tests  of  power  and  character ! 

Few  even  of  Dickens's  phrases  contain  such  a  con- 


CRAMMINa.  115 

densation  of  fact  and  philosophy  as  the  phrase  "  whose 
heads  and  livers  you  have  turned  upside  down  for  life." 
Few  phrases  deserve  more  careful  consideration  from 
educators. 

Dickens  makes  the  effect  on  the  head  still  more  star- 
tling by  the  description  of  Miss  Wozenham's  brother  in 
Mrs.  Lirriper's  Legacy.  "  Miss  Wozenham  out  of  her 
small  income  had  to  support  a  brother  that  had  had  the 
misfortune  to  soften  his  brain  against  the  hard  mathe- 
matics." 

In  the  same  story  he  laughs  at  the  practical  results  of 
language  cramming  usually  done  in  the  schools : 

And  the  waj'  in  which  Jemmy  spoke  his  French  was 
a  real  charm.  It  was  often  wanted  of  him,  for  whenever 
anybody  spoke  a  syllable  to  me  I  says  "  Noneomprenny, 
you're  very  kind  but  it's  no  use — Xow  Jemmy!  "  and  then 
Jemmy  he  fires  away  at  'em  lovely,  the  only  thing  wanting 
in  Jemmy's  French  being  as  it  appeared  to  me  that  he 
hardly  ever  understood  a  word  of  what  they  said  to  him, 
which  made  it  scarcely  of  the  use  it  might  have  been. 

Dickens  attempted  to  picture  the  feelings  of  a  boy 
toward  his  teachers  in  the  days  when  cramming  was 
almost  universally  practised  in  the  story  of  Lieutenant- 
Colonel  Robin  Redforth,  aged  nine.  When  the  Latin 
master  was  captured,  he  was  saved  by  Captain  Boldheart 
from  the  punishment  of  death  to  which  he  was  con- 
demned by  the  crew  of  The  Beauty.  Captain  Boldheart 
had  been  one  of  his  pupils,  and  he  said :  "  Without  tak- 
ing your  life,  I  must  yet  forever  deprive  you  of  the 
power  of  spiting  other  boys.  I  shall  turn  you  adrift  in 
this  boat.  You  will  find  in  her  two  oars,  a  compass,  a 
bottle  of  rum,  a  small  cask  of  water,  a  piece  of  pork,  a 
bag  of  biscuit,  and  my  Latin  grammar.  Go !  and  spite 
the  natives  if  you  can  find  any." 

When  he  afterward  released  him  from  the  savages 
who  were  about  to  eat  him,  he  granted  him  his  life  for 
the  second  time  on  condition : 

"  1.  That  he  should  never  under  any  circumstances 
presume  to  teach  any  boy  anything  any  more. 


116  DICKENS   AS  AN   EDUCATOR. 

"  2.  That,  if  taken  back  to  England,  he  should  pass 
his  life  in  travelling  to  find  out  boys  who  wanted  their 
exercises  done,  and  should  do  their  exercises  for  noth- 
ing, and  never  say  a  word  about  it." 

When  it  finally  became  necessary  to  hang  the  Latin 
master,  Boldheart  "  impressively  pointed  out  to  him  that 
this  is  what  spiters  come  to." 

There  are  many  kinds  of  cram  that  yet  pass  as  fairly 
respectable  in  schools  and  universities.  When  the  teach- 
ers or  the  professors  give  notes  to  be  copied  by  the  pupils 
and  memorized,  they  are  cramming.  When  teachers  are 
storing  the  memories  of  children  with  facts,  tables,  dates, 
etc.,  to  be  used  at  some  future  time,  they  are  cramming. 
All  memorizing  by  repetition  of  words,  even  if  they 
are  understood,  is  cram,  if  the  pupil  can  work  the 
thought  into  his  life  by  repetition  of  process  or  of  opera- 
tion. Words  can  never  take  the  place  of  self-activity,  nor 
even  of  activity. 

So  long  as  knowledge  storing  is  placed  above  charac- 
ter development,  examinations  by  "  examiners  "  will  re- 
tain their  power  for  evil,  and  so  long  as  such  examina- 
tions are  held  cramming  will  continue. 

All  processes  that  attempt  to  educate  from  without 
inward,  instead  of  from  within  outward,  are  in  the  last 
analysis  cram.  The  selfhood  must  be  active  in  going  out 
for  the  new  knowledge.  The  child  must  himself  be  origi- 
native, directive,  and  executive  in  the  learning  process 
if  crani  is  to  be  avoided  completely.  This  is  the  only  sure 
way  to  secure  perfect  apperception,  and  without  apper- 
ception the  new  knowledge  lies  dormant,  if  not  dead,  and 
unrelated  in  the  memory  until  it  disappears,  as  did  Bith- 
erstone's.  His  declensions,  according  to  Dickens,  were 
not  likely  to  last  out  his  journey  from  England  to  India. 


CHAPTER  YI. 

FREE    CHILDHOOD. 

Adulthood  can  never  be  truly  free  till  childhood  is 
free.  Perfect  freedom  can  not  be  developed  in  a  soul 
filled  with  the  apperceptive  experiences  of  tyranny.  Xo 
man  is  fully  free  in  the  freest  country  in  the  world  who 
wishes  to  dominate  even  his  child.  The  practice  of 
tyranny  develops  the  tyrant.  Guiding  control  is  entire- 
ly different  from  domination. 

Dickens  taught  the  doctrine  of  a  rich,  full,  free  child- 
hood from  the  time  he  wrote  ISTicholas  Nickleby  in  1839. 

Even  the  sunburned  faces  of  gipsy  children,  half  naked 
though  they  be,  suggest  a  drop  of  comfort.  It  is  a  pleasant 
thing  to  see  that  the  sun  has  been  there;  to  know  that  the 
air  and  light  are  on  them  every  day;  to  feel  that  they  are 
children,  and  lead  children's  lives;  that  if  their  pillows  be 
damp,  it  is  with  the  dews  of  heaven,  and  not  with  tears; 
that  the  limbs  of  their  girls  are  free,  and  that  they  are  not 
crippled  by  distortions,  imposing  an  unnatural  and  horrible 
penance  upon  their  sex;  that  their  lives  are  spent,  from 
day  to  day,  at  least  among  the  waving  trees,  and  not  in  the 
midst  of  dreadful  engines  which  make  young  children  old 
before  they  know  what  childhood  is,  and  give  them  the 
exhaustion  and  infirmity  of  age,  without,  like  age,  the 
privilege  to  die.  God  send  that  old  nursery  tales  were 
true,  and  that  gipsies  stole  such  children  by  the  score! 

If  he  had  written  nothing  but  this  exquisite  quota- 
tion from  ISTicholas  Nickleby  he  would  have  deserved  rec- 
ognition as  an  educator.  It  shows  a  clear  insight  into  the 
great  principles  of  physical  freedom,  intellectual  free- 
dom, and  spiritual  freedom. 

In  The  Old  Curiosity  Shop  he  made  the  world  sympa- 
9  117 


118  DICKENS  AS  AN  EDUCATOR. 

thize  with  a  child  who  lived  with  an  old  man.  He  gives  the 
keynote  to  this  fundamental  thought  of  the  book  in  the 
opening  chapter: 

It  always  grieves  me  to  contemplate  the  initiation  of 
children  into  the  ways  of  life  w  hen  they  are  scarcely  more 
than  infants.  It  checks  their  confidence  and  simplicity — 
two  of  the  best  qualities  that  Heaven  gives  them — and  de- 
mands that  they  share  our  sorrows  before  they  are  capable 
of  entering  into  our  enjoyments." 

Little  Nell  had  the  sadness  of  a  lonely  childhood, 
though  her  grandfather  lived  with  but  the  one  aim  of 
making  her  happy. 

In  Martin  Chuzzlewit — 

Tom  Pinch's  sister  was  governess  in  a  family,  a  lofty 
family;  perhaps  the  wealthiest  brass  and  copper  founder's 
family  known  to  mankind.  They  lived  at  Camberwell;  in 
a  house  so  big  and  fierce  that  its  mere  outside,  like  the  out- 
side of  a  giant's  castle,  struck  terror  into  vulgar  minds  and 
made  bold  persons  quail. 

When  Mr.  Pecksniff  and  his  daughters  went  to  visit 
Miss  Pinch  she 

was  at  that  moment  instructing  her  eldest  pupil;  to  wit, 
a  premature  little  woman  of  thirteen  years  old,  who  had 
already  arrived  at  such  a  pitch  of  whalebone  and  education 
that  she  had  nothing  girlish  about  her,  which  w^as  a  source 
of  great  rejoicing  to  all  her  relations  and  friends. 

One  of  the  unsolved  mysteries  is  the  fact  that  such  a 
large  proportion  of  parents  are  so  anxious  to  have  their 
children  grow  up.  The  desire  may  be  understood  when 
poverty  longs  for  the  time  when  the  little  hands  may 
help  to  win  bread,  but  that  wealthy  parents  should  hasten 
the  premature  state  of  adulthood  in  their  children  is  in- 
comprehensible. 

A  great  deal  of  attention  is  paid  to  the  blunder  of 
robbing  children  of  real  childhood  in  Dombey  and  Son, 
which  is  so  rich  in  several  departments  of  educational 
philosophy.  Doctor  Blimber  regarded  the  young  gentle- 
men "  as  if  they  were  born  grown  up." 


FREE   CHILDHOOD.  119 

Paul's  life  and  death  were  intended  as  warnings  to 
ambitious  parents.  Florence  was  robbed  of  a  true  child- 
hood by  her  mother's  death  and  her  father's  lack  of  sym- 
pathy. Briggs  and  Tozer  had  no  childhood;  they  were 
persecuted  by  the  ingenious  and  ignorantly  learned 
adults  at  home  during  vacations,  as  well  as  by  Doctor 
Blimber  during  school  time ;  so  that  "  Tozer  said,  indeed, 
that  choosing  between  two  evils,  he  would  rather  stay  at 
school  than  go  home." 

Poor  Bitherstone  had  no  childhood.  He  was  shipped 
away  from  his  parents  in  India  to  the  respectable  hell 
conducted  by  that  widely  known  and  highly  reputed  child 
trainer  Mrs.  Pipchin. 

Poor  little  Miss  Pankey  spent  a  great  deal  of  her  time 
in  Mrs.  Pipchin's  "  correctional  dungeon."  What  a 
mercy  it  would  be  if  all  such  unfortunate  children  could 
be  stolen  by  the  gipsies ! 

Mrs.  Pipchin's  theory  taught  "  that  it  was  wrong  to 
encourage  a  child's  mind  to  develop  and  expand  itself 
like  a  young  flower,  but  to  open  it  by  force  like  an 
oyster," 

When  Doctor  Blimber  asked  Paul,  six-year-old  Paul, 
"  if  he  would  like  them  to  make  a  man  of  him,"  the  child 
replied : 

"  I  had  rather  be  a  child." 

One  of  Dickens's  most  successful  hits  at  the  com- 
mon philosophy,  that  the  desired  adult  characteristics 
must  be  developed  in  childhood  in  their  adult  forms,  was 
made  in  describing  Mrs.  Tozer's  effort  to  qualify  Tozer 
for  the  position  of  a  clergyman  by  making  him  wear  a 
stiff,  starched  necktie  while  he  was  a  boy. 

When  Edith  upbraided  her  mother  for  practically 
compelling  her  to  marry  Mr.  Dombey,  her  mother  asked 
angrily : 

"What  do  you  mean?     Haven't  you  from  a  child '* 

"A  childl  "  said  Edith,  looking  at  her;  "when  was  I  a 
child?  What  childhood  did  you  ever  leave  to  me?  I  was 
a  woman — artful,  designing,  mercenary,  laying  snares  for 
men — before  I  knew  myself  or  you,  or  even  understood  the 
base  and  wretched  aim  of  every  new  display  I  learned.    You 


120  DICKENS  AS  AN   EDUCATOR. 

gave  birth  to  a  woman.  Look  upon  her.  She  is  in  her 
pride  to-night." 

"  You  talk  strangely  to-night,  Edith,  to  your  own 
mother." 

"  It  seems  so  to  me;  stranger  to  me  than  to  you,"  said 
Edith.  "But  my  education  was  completed  long  ago.  I 
am  too  old  now  and  have  fallen  too  low,  by  degrees,  to  take 
a  new^  course,  and  to  stop  yours,  and  to  help  myself.  The 
germ  of  all  that  purifies  a  woman's  breast,  and  makes  it 
true  and  good,  has  never  stirred  in  mine,  and  I  have  noth- 
ing else  to  sustain  me  when  I  despise  myself." 

Later,  on  the  night  before  she  was  to  marry  Mr.  Dom- 
bey,  she  said: 

"  Oh,  mother,  mother,  if  you  had  but  left  me  to  my 
natural  heart  when  I  too  was  a  girl — a  younger  girl  than 
Florence — how  different  I  might  have  been!  " 

Bleak  House  gives  Dickens's  most  striking  picture  of 
the  deterioration  resulting  from  giving  no  real  childhood 
to  children  for  a  series  of  generations. 

During  the  whole  time  consumed  i|^lfe^  slow  growth  of 
this  family  tree,  the  house  of  Smallweed,  always  earlv  to 
go  to  business  and  late  to  marry,  has  strengthened  itself  in 
its  practical  character,  has  discarded  all  amusements,  dis- 
countenanced all  storybooks,  fairy  tales,  fictions,  and 
fables,  and  banished  all  levities  whatsoever.  Hence  the 
gratifying  fact  that  it  has  had  no  child  born  to  it,  and 
that  the  complete  little  men  and  women  whom  it  has  pro- 
duced have  been  observed  to  bear  a  likeness  to  old  monkeys 
with  something  depressing  on  their  minds. 

There  has  been  only  one  child  in  the  Smallweed  family 
for  several  generations.  Little  old  men  and  women  there 
have  been,  but  no  child,  until  Mr.  Smallweed's  grand- 
mother, now  living,  became  weak  in  her  intellect,  and  fell 
(for  the  first  time)  into  a  childish  state.  With  such  infan- 
tine graces  as  a  total  want  of  observation,  memory,  under- 
standing, and  interest,  and  an  eternal  disposition  to  fall 
asleep  over  the  fire  and  into  it,  Mr.  Smallweed's  grand- 
mother has  undoubtedly  brightened  the  family. 

There  could  be  no  more  awful  picture  than  that  of  a 
family  in  which  for  a  series  of  generations  the  children 
had  been,  through  heredity  and  training,  made  "  little 


FREE   CHILDHOOD.  121 

old  men  and  women,"  who  were  never  permitted  to  in- 
dulge in  any  childish  plays,  or  to  enjoy  any  stories,  or 
in  any  way  have  a  genuine  childhood,  so  that  they  not 
only  came  to  look  like  monkeys,  but  "  like  monkeys  with 
something  depressing  on  their  minds  " ;  and  in  which  the 
only  child  for  several  generations  had  been  Mr.  Small- 
weed's  grcindmother,  when  she  became  weak  in  intellect 
and  "  fell  (for  the  first  time)  into  a  childish  state." 

In  The  Haunted  House  the  wretched  child  who  came 
to  Mr.  Redlaw's  room  is  described  as  "  a  baby  savage,  a 
young  monster,  a  child  who  had  never  been  a  child." 

Dickens  made  his  greatest  plea  for  a  free  childhood 
in  Hard  Times.  The  whole  of  the  educational  part  of 
the  book  condemns  the  training  of  Mr.  Gradgrind,  al- 
though he  was  an  earnest,  high-minded  gentleman,  whose 
supreme  purpose  was  to  train  his  family  in  the  best  possi- 
ble way.  Indeed  Mr.  Gradgrind  was  so  sure  he  was  right 
in  his  views  regarding  child  training  that  he  founded  a 
school  to  teach  the  children  of  Coketown  in  accordance 
with  what  he  believed  to  be  correct  principles. 

Mr.  Gradgrind  is  described  as 

a  kind  cannon  loaded  to  the  muzzle  with  facts,  and  pre- 
pared to  blow  children  clean  out  of  the  regions  of  child- 
hood at  one  discharge.  He  seemed  a  galvanizing  appa- 
ratus, too,  charged  "vvith  a  grim  mechanical  substitute  for 
the  tender  young  imaginations  that  were  to  be  stormed 
away. 

There  were  five  young  Gradgrinds,  and  they  were 
models  every  one.  They  had  been  lectured  at  from  their 
tenderest  years;  coursed,  like  little  hares.  Almost  as  soon 
as  they  could  run  alone  they  had  been  made  to  run  to 
the  lecture  room.  The  first  object  with  which  they  had  an 
association  or  of  which  they  had  a  remembrance  was  a 
large  blackboard  with  a  dry  ogre  chalking  ghastly  white 
figures  on  it. 

Xot  that  they  knew,  by  name  or  nature,  anything  about 
an  ogre.  Fact  forbid!  I  onlj^  use  the  word  to  express  a 
monster  in  a  lecturing  castle,  with  heaven  knows  how 
many  heads  manipulated  into  one,  taking  childhood  cap- 
tive, and  dragging  it  into  gloomy  statistical  dens  by  the 
hair. 


122  DICKENS   AS   AN   EDUCATOR. 

No  little  Gradgrind  had  ever  seen  a  face  in  the  moon; 
it  was  up  in  the  moon  before  it  could  speak  distinctly.  No 
little  Gradgrind  had  ever  learned  the  silly  jingle,  "  Twin- 
kle, twinkle,  little  star;  how  I  wonder  what  you  are  ";  it 
had  never  known  wonder  on  the  subject,  having  at  five 
years  old  dissected  the  Great  Bear  like  a  Professor  Owen 
and  driven  Charles's  Wain  like  a  locomotive  engine  driver. 
No  little  Gradgrind  had  ever  associated  a  cow  in  a  field 
with  that  famous  cow  with  the  crumpled  horn  who  tossed 
the  dog  who  worried  the  cat  who  killed  the  rat  who  ate  the 
malt,  or  with  that  yet  more  famous  cow  who  swallowed 
Tom  Thumb;  it  had  never  heard  of  those  celebrities,  and 
had  only  been  introduced  to  a  cow  as  a  graminivorous  ru- 
minating quadruped  with  several  stomachs. 

The  effect  of  preventing  all  kinds  of  enjoyment  for 
his  children  in  their  own  home  was  that  they  naturally 
sought  for  enjoyment  surreptitiously  in  a  way  of  which 
their  father  disapproved.  But  when  a  man  disapproves 
of  legitimate  amusements  in  his  family  his  condemna- 
tion of  what  is  improper  will  have  little  weight  with  his 
children. 

When  Mr.  Gradgrind  was  going  home  from  the  school 
examination  he  had  to  pass  near  the  circus,  and  he  was 
amazed  to  find  his  daughter  Louisa  and  his  son  Thomas 
stealing  a  view  of  the  performance. 

Phenomenon  almost  incredible  though  distinctly  seen, 
what  did  he  then  behold  but  his  own  metallurgical  Lou- 
isa peeping  with  all  her  might  through  a  hole  in  a  deal 
board,  and  his  own  mathematical  Thomas  abasing  himself 
on  the  ground  to  catch  but  a  hoof  of  the  graceful  eques- 
trian Tyrolean  flower  act! 

Dumb  with  amazement,  Mr.  Gradgrind  crossed  to  the 
spot  where  his  family  was  thus  disgraced,  laid  his  hand 
upon  each  erring  child,  and   said: 

"Louisa!      Thomas!  " 

Both  rose,  red  and  disconcerted.  But  Louisa  looked  at 
her  father  with  more  boldness  than  Thomas  did.  Indeed, 
Thomas  did  not  look  at  him,  but  gave  himself  up  to  be 
taken  home  like  a  machine. 

"  In  the  name  of  wonder,  idleness,  and  folly!  "  said  Mr. 
Gradgrind,  leading  each  away  by  a  hand;  "what  do  you 
do  here?" 


FREE  CHILDHOOD.  123 

"  Wanted  to  see  what  it  was  like,"  returned  Louisa 
shortly. 

"  What  it  was  like?  " 

"Yes,  father." 

There  was  an  air  of  jaded  sullenness  in  them  both,  and 
particularh-  in  the  g"irl;  yet,  struggling  through  the  dissat- 
isfaction of  her  face,  there  was  a  light  with  nothing  to 
rest  upon,  a  fire  with  nothing  to  burn,  a  starved  imagina- 
tion keeping  life  in  itself  somehow^  which  brightened  its 
expression.  Not  with  the  brightness  natural  to  cheerful 
youth,  but  with  uncertain,  eager,  doubtful  flashes,  which 
had  something  painful  in  them,  analogous  to  the  changes 
on  a  blind  face  groping  its  way. 

"  You!  Thomas  and  you,  to  whom  the  circle  of  the 
sciences  is  open,  Thomas  and  you,  who  may  be  said  to  be  re- 
plete with  facts,  Thomas  and  you,  who  have  been  trained  to 
mathematical  exactness,  Thomas  and  you,  here!  "  cried  Mr. 
Gradgrind.     "In  this  degraded  position!      I  am  amazed." 

"  I  was  tired,  father.  I  have  been  tired  a  long  time," 
said  Louisa. 

"Tired?     Of  what?"  asked  the  astonished  father. 

"  I  don't  know  of  what — of  everything,  I  think." 

When  they  reached  home,  Mr.  Gradgrind  in  an  in- 
jured tone  said  to  Mrs.  Gradgrind,  after  telling  her  where 
he  had  found  the  children : 

"  I  should  as  soon  have  expected  to  find  my  children 
reading  poetry." 

"  Dear  me,"  whimpered  Mrs.  Gradgrind.  "  How  can 
you,  Louisa  and  Thomas!  I  wonder  at  you.  As  if,  with 
my  head  in  its  present  throbbing  state,  you  couldn't  go 
and  look  at  the  shells  and  minerals  and  things  provided 
for  you,  instead  of  circuses!  "  said  Mrs.  Gradgrind.  "You 
know  as  well  as  I  do,  no  young  people  have  circus  masters, 
or  keep  circuses  in  cabinets,  or  attend  lectures  about  cir- 
cuses. What  can  you  possibly  want  to  know  of  circuses 
then?  I  am  sure  3'ou  have  enough  to  do,  if  that's  what 
you  want.  With  my  head  in  its  present  state,  I  couldn't 
remember  the  mere  names  of  half  the  facts  you  have  got  to 
attend  to." 

"  That's  the  reason!  "  pouted  Louisa. 

"  Don't  tell  me  that's  the  reason,  because  it  can  be 
nothing  of  the  sort,"  said  Mrs.  Gradgrind.  "  Go  and  be 
something-ological  directly." 


124  DICKENS  AS  AN  EDUCATOR. 

After  Louisa  had  married  Mr.  Bounderby,  Tom  and 
Mr.  Harthouse  were  discussing  her  one  evening,  and  Tom 
said  she  thought  a  great  deal  when  she  was  alone: 

"  Ay,  ay?    Has  resources  of  her  own,"  said  Harthouse. 

"  Not  so  much  of  that  as  you  may  suppose,"  returned 
Tom;  "  for  our  governor  had  her  crammed  with  all  sorts 
of  dry  bones  and  sawdust.     It's  his  system." 

"  Formed  his  daughter  on  his  own  model?  "  suggested 
Harthouse. 

"  His  daughter?  Ah!  and  everybody  else.  Why,  he 
formed  me  that  way,"  said  Tom. 

"  Impossible!  " 

"  He  did  though,"  said  Tom,  shaking  his  head.  "  I  mean 
to  say,  Mr.  Harthouse,  that  when  I  first  left  home  and  went 
to  old  Bounderby's,  I  was  as  flat  as  a  w^arming-pan,  and 
knew  no  more  about  life  than  any  oyster  does." 

Dickens  describes  a  visit  Louisa  made  to  her  father's 
house,  and  shows  how  little  of  the  true  home  feeling  was 
stirred  in  her  heart,  as  she  approached  the  place,  where 
she  should  have  had  a  happy  childhood. 

Neither,  as  she  approached  her  old  home  now,  did  any 
of  the  best  influences  of  old  home  descend  upon  her.  Her 
remembrances  of  home  and  childhood  were  remembrances 
of  the  drying  up  of  every  spring  and  fountain  in  her  young 
heart  as  it  gushed  out.  The  golden  waters  were  not  there. 
They  were  flowing  for  the  fertilization  of  the  land  where 
grapes  are  gathered  from  thorns,  and  figs  from  thistles. 

When  her  father  proposed  to  Louisa  that  she  should 
marry  Mr.  Bounderby,  she  said: 

"  The  baby  preference  that  even  I  have  heard  of  as  com- 
mon among  children  has  never  had  its  innocent  resting 
place  in  my  breast.  You  have  been  so  careful  of  me,  that 
I  never  had  a  child's  heart.  You  have  trained  me  so  well, 
that  I  never  dreamed  a  child's  dream.  You  have  dealt  so 
wisely  with  me,  father,  from  my  cradle  to  this  hour,  that  I 
never  had  a  child's  belief  or  a  child's  fear." 

Mr.  Gradgrind  was  delighted  at  his  apparent  success. 
He  could  not  see,  he  was  so  practical  and  so  self-opinion- 
ated, that  her  heart  was  breaking  while  she  was  yielding 
with  external  calmness. 


FREE   CHILDHOOD.  125 

But  the  reaping  time  came  soon.  Mr.  Harthouse, 
young,  attractive,  and  unscrupulous,  made  love  to  Louisa, 
and  finally  persuaded  her  to  run  away  with  him.  Unable 
to  resist  the  temptation  in  her  own  strength,  she  fled  to 
her  father's  house  through  an  awful  storm. 

The  thunder  was  rolling  into  distance,  and  the  rain 
was  pouring  down  like  a  deluge,  when  the  door  of  his 
rooni  opened.  He  looked  round  the  lamp  upon  his  table, 
and  saw  with  amazement  his  eldest  daughter. 

"Louisa!  " 

"  Father,  I  want  to  speak  to  you." 

"What  is  the  matter?  What  is  it?  I  conjure  you, 
Louisa,  tell  me  what  is  the  matter." 

She  dropped  into  a  chair  before  him,  and  put  her  cold 
hand  on  his  arm. 

"  Father,  you  have  trained  me  from  my  cradle." 

"  Yes,  Louisa." 

"  I  curse  the  hour  in  which  I  was  born  to  such  a 
destiny." 

He  looked  at  her  in  doubt  and  dread,  vacantly  repeat- 
ing, "Curse  the  hour  I      Curse  the  hour!  " 

"  How  could  you  give  me  life,  and  take  from  me  all  the 
inappreciable  things  that  raise  it  from  the  state  of  con- 
scious death?  Where  are  the  graces  of  my  soul?  Where 
are  the  sentiments  of  my  heart?  What  have  you  done,  O 
father,  what  have  you  done,  with  the  garden  that  should 
have  bloomed  once,  in  this  great  wilderness  here?  " 

She  struck  herself  with  both  her  hands  upon  her  bosom. 

"  If  it  had  ever  been  here,  its  ashes  alone  would  save  me 
from  the  void  in  which  my  whole  life  sinks." 

He  tightened  his  hold  in  time  to  prevent  her  sinking 
on  the  floor,  but  she  cried  out  in  a  terrible  voice,  "  I  shall 
die  if  you  hold  me!  Let  me  fall  upon  the  ground!  "  And 
he  laid  her  down  there,  and  saw  the  pride  of  his  heart  and 
the  triumph  of  his  system  lying,  an  insensible  heap,  at 
his  feet. 

In  the  Schoolboy's  Story,  the  boy  who  was  to  have  no 
holiday  at  home  was  invited  to  spend  his  holidays  with 
"  Old  Cheeseman  "  and  Mrs.  Cheeseman. 

So  I  went  to  their  delightful  house,  and  was  as  happy 
as  I  could  possibly  be.  They  understand  how  to  conduct 
themselves  toward  boys,  they  do.    When  they  take  a  boy  to 


126  DICKENS  AS  AN  EDUCATOR. 

the  play,  for  instance,  they  do  take  him.  They  don't  go  in 
after  it's  begun,  or  come  out  before  it's  over.  Thej^  know 
how  to  bring  a  boy  up,  too.  Look  at  their  own!  Though 
he  is  very  little  as  yet,  what  a  capital  boy  he  is!  Why,  my 
next  favourite  to  Mrs.  Cheeseman  and  Old  Cheeseman  is 
young  Cheeseman. 

When  Dickens  came  to  his  last  book  his  heart  was 
still  full  of  sympathy  with  the  child. 

Edwin  Drood  said  to  Mr.  Jasper :  "  Life  for  you  is  a 
plum  with  the  natural  bloom  on.  It  hasn't  been  over- 
carefully  wiped  off  for  you." 

In  the  same  book  Mr.  Grewgious  is  described: 

He  was  an  arid,  sandy  man,  who,  if  he  had  been  put 
into  a  grinding  mill,  looked  as  if  he  would  have  ground 
immediately  into  high-dried  snuff.  He  had  a  scanty  flat 
crop  of  hair,  in  colour  and  consistency  like  some  very 
mangy  yellow  fur  tippet;  it  was  so  unlike  hair,  that  it 
must  have  been  a  wig,  but  for  the  stupendous  improbabil- 
ity of  anybody's  voluntarily  sporting  such  a  head.  The 
little  play  of  feature  that  his  face  presented  was  cut  deep 
into  it,  in  a  few  hard  curves  that  made  it  more  like  work; 
and  he  had  certain  notches  in  his  forehead,  which  looked 
as  though  Nature  had  been  about  to  touch  them  into  sen- 
sibility or  refinement,  when  she  had  impatiently  thrown 
away  the  chisel,  and  said,  "  I  really  can  not  be  worried  to 
finish  off  this  man;  let  him  go  as  he  is." 

He  tried  to  explain  the  reason  for  his  peculiarities  to 
Rosa: 

"  I  mean,"  he  explained,  "  that  young  ways  were  never 
my  ways.  I  was  the  only  offspring  of  parents  far  advanced 
in  life,  and  I  half  believe  I  was  born  advanced  in  life  mj'^- 
self.  No  personality  is  intended  toward  the  name  you  will 
so  soon  change,  when  I  remark  that  while  the  general 
growth  of  people  seem  to  have  come  into  existence  buds,  I 
seem  to  have  come  into  existence  a  chip.  I  was  a  chip — and 
a  very  dry  one — when  I  first  became  aware  of  myself." 

Dickens  takes  a  front  rank  among  the  educators  who 
have  tried  to  save  the  child  from  "  child-quellers,"  and 
preserve  for  them  the  right  to  a  free,  rich,  real  childhood. 
The  saddest  sight  in  the  world  to  him  was  a  child  such 


FREE   CHILDHOOD.  127 

as  he  pictured  in  A  Tale  of  Two  Cities :  "  The  children  of 
St.  Antoine  had  ancient  faces  and  grave  voices." 

In  Barbox  Brothers  Mr.  Jackson  said  of  himself :  "  I 
am,  to  myself,  an  unintelligible  book,  with  the  earlier  chap- 
ters all  torn  out  and  thrown  away.  My  childhood  had  no 
grace  of  childhood,  my  youth  had  no  charm  of  youth,  and 
what  can  be  expected  from  such  a  lost  beginning  ? " 

Dickens  tried  to  save  all  children  from  such  a  begin- 
ning. 


CHAPTEK  VII. 

INDIVIDUALITY. 

Dickens  began  to  write  definitely  about  individuality 
in  Martin  Chuzzlewit  in  1844.  Martin  described  a  com- 
pany he  met  in  America  "  who  were  so  strangely  devoid 
of  individual  traits  of  character  that  any  one  of  them 
might  have  changed  minds  with  the  other  and  nobody 
would  have  found  it  out." 

In  David  Copperfield  he  makes  Traddles,  who  was 
trained  by  Mr.  Creakle,  say :  "  I  have  no  invention  at  all, 
not  a  particle.  I  suppose  there  never  was  a  young  man 
with  less  originality  than  I  have.*' 

David  himself  said  sagely :  "  I  have  encountered  some 
fine  ladies  and  gentlemen  who  might  as  well  have  been 
born  caterpillars." 

David  emphasizes  the  phase  of  individuality  that 
teaches  the  power  of  each  individual  to  do  some  special 
good,  when  he  said  to  Martha  when  she  spoke  of  the  river 
as  the  end  of  her  useless  life : 

"  In  the  name  of  the  great  Judge,  before  whom  you 
and  all  of  us  must  stand  at  his  dread  time,  dismiss  that 
terrible  idea !    We  can  all  do  some  good,  if  we  will." 

In  Bleak  House  Sir  Leicester  Dedlock  is  represented 
as  of  opinion  that  he  should  at  least  think  for  every  one 
in  connection  with  his  estate. 

The  present  representative  of  the  Dedlocks  is  an  ex- 
cellent master.  He  supposes  all  his  dependents  to  be  ut- 
terly bereft  of  individual  characters,  intentions,  or  opin- 
ions, and  is  persuaded  that  he  was  born  to  supersede  the 
necessity  of  their  having  any.  If  he  were  to  make  a  dis- 
covery to  the  contrary,  he  would  be  simply  stunned — would 
never  recover  himself,  most  likely,  except  to  gasp  and  die. 

128 


INDIVIDUALITY.  129 

The  same  absolute  contempt  for  the  individuality  of 
the  poor  is  ridiculed  in  The  Chimes.  Sir  Joseph  Bowley 
is  a  type  of  the  English  squire  who  used  to  act  on  the  as- 
sumption that  he  had  to  care  for  the  workmen  on  his 
estate,  and  the  poor  of  his  neighbourhood,  as  he  did  for 
his  horses  and  other  animals. 

"  I  do  my  dutj'  as  the  Poor  Man's  Friend  and*Father; 
and  I  endeavour  to  educate  his  mind  by  inculcating  on  all 
occasions  the  one  great  moral  lesson  which  that  class  re- 
quires— that  is,  entire  Dependence  on  myself.  They  have 
no  business  whatever  with — with  themselves.  If  wicked 
and  designing  persons  tell  them  otherwise,  and  they  be- 
come impatient  and  discontented,  and  are  guilty  of  insub- 
ordinate conduct  and  black-hearted  ingratitude — w^hich  is 
undoubtedly  the  case — I  am  their  Friend  and  Father  still. 
It  is  so  ordained.  It  is  in  the  nature  of  things.  They 
needn't  trouble  themselves  to  think  about  anything.  I 
will  think  for  them;  I  know  what  is  good  for  them;  I 
am  their  perpetual  parent.  Such  is  the  dispensation  of  an 
all-wise  Providence." 

It  is  strange  that  men  so  commonly  ascribe  to  Provi- 
dence the  dreadful  conditions  which  have  resulted  from 
man's  ignorance  and  selfishness,  and  which  Providence  in- 
tended man  to  reform. 

Esther,  in  Bleak  House,  speaking  of  the  influence  of 
the  chancery  suit  on  Richard  Carstone,  said: 

"  The  character  of  much  older  and  steadier  people  may 
be  even  changed  by  the  circumstances  surrounding  them. 
It  would  be  too  much  to  expect  that  a  boy's,  in  its  forma- 
tion, should  be  the  subject  of  such  influences,  and  escape 
them." 

I  felt  this  to  be  true;  though,  if  I  may  venture  to  men- 
tion what  I  thought  besides,  I  thought  it  much  to  be  re- 
gretted that  Richard's  education  had  not  counteracted 
those  influences  or  directed  his  character.  He  had  been 
eight  years  at  a  public  school,  and  had  learned,  I  under- 
stood, to  make  Latin  verses  of  several  sorts,  in  the  most 
admirable  manner.  But  I  never  heard  that  it  had  been 
anybody's  business  to  find  out  what  his  natural  bent  was, 
or  w^here  his  failings  lay,  or  to  adapt  any  kind  of  knowl- 
edge to  him.     He  had  been  adapted  to  the  verses,  and  had 


130  DICKENS  AS  AN   EDUCATOR. 

learned  the  art  of  making"  them  to  such  perfection,  that 
if  he  had  remained  at  school  until  he  was  of  age  I  sup- 
pose he  could  only  have  gone  on  making  them  over  and 
over  again,  unless  he  had  enlarged  his  education  by  forget- 
ting how  to  do  it.  Still,  although  I  had  no  doubt  that  they 
were  very  beautiful,  and  very  improving,  and  very  sufficient 
for  a  great  many  purposes  of  life,  and  always  remembered 
all  through  life,  I  did  doubt  whether  Richard  would  not 
have  profited  by  some  one  studying  him  a  little,  instead  of 
his  studying  them  quite  so  much. 

Richard  was  one  of  those  unstable  men  who  have  good 
abilities,  but  who  do  not  use  them  persistently  in  the  ac- 
complishment of  any  one  purpose,  and  who  never  seem 
to  find  the  sphere  for  which  they  are  best  fitted.  They 
are  man-products,  not  God-products.  When  Richard, 
after  several  attempts  to  work  at  other  things  with  high 
enthusiasm  for  a  few  weeks,  decided  to  be  a  physician, 
Esther  said: 

Mistrusting  that  he  only  came  to  this  conclusion  be- 
cause, having  never  had  much  chance  of  finding  out  for 
himself  what  he  was  fitted  for,  and  having  never  been 
guided  to  the  discovery,  he  was  taken  with  the  newest  idea, 
and  was  glad  to  get  rid  of  the  trouble  of  consideration, 
I  wondered  whether  the  Latin  verses  often  ended  in  this, 
or  whether  Richard's  was  a  solitary  case. 

Richard  very  often  came  to  see  us  while  we  remained 
in  London  (though  he  soon  failed  in  his  letter  writing), 
and  with  his  quick  abilities,  his  good  spirits,  his  good  tem- 
per, his  gaiety  and  freshness,  was  always  delightful.  But 
though  I  liked  him  more  and  more  the  better  I  knew  him, 
I  still  felt  more  and  more  how  much  it  was  to  be  regretted 
that  he  had  been  educated  in  no  habits  of  application  and 
concentration.  The  system  which  had  addressed  him  in 
exactly  the  same  manner  as  it  had  addressed  hundreds  of 
other  boys,  all  varying  in  character  and  capacity,  had  en- 
abled him  to  dash  through  his  tasks,  always  with  fair 
credit,  and  often  with  distinction;  but  in  a  fitful,  dazzling 
way  that  had  confirmed  his  reliance  on  those  very  qualities 
in  himself  which  it  had  been  most  desirable  to  direct  and 
train.  They  were  great  qualities,  without  which  no  high 
place  can  be  meritoriously  Avon;  but,  like  fire  and  water, 
though  excellent  servants,  they  were  very  bad  masters.     If 


INDIVIDUALITY.  131 

they  had  been  under  Richard's  direction,  they  would  have 
been  his  friends;  but  Richard  being  under  their  direction, 
they  became  his  enemies. 

Any  educational  system  that  "  addresses  hundreds  of 
boys  exactly  in  the  same  manner  "  must  destroy  their  in- 
dividuality. 

In  Hard  Times  Tom  Gradgrind  became  a  low,  de- 
graded, sensual,  dissipated  criminal,  and  Dickens  accounts 
for  his  failure  by  the  unnatural  restraint,  constant  over- 
sight, and  the  strangling  of  his  imagination  in  his  cradle 
and  afterward.  In  other  words,  the  boy's  selfhood  never, 
had  a  chance  to  develop,  and  every  power  he  had  natu- 
rally to  make  him  strong,  true,  and  independent  had  helped 
to  work  his  ruin. 

In  Little  Dorrit  Mrs.  General  is  herself  a  model  to 
be  avoided,  and  her  system  of  training  is  ridiculed  because 
she  paid  no  attention  whatever  to  the  selfhood  of  her 
pupils  except  to  conceal  it  artfully  and  prevent  the  recog- 
nition of  any  of  the  evils  by  which  it  was  surrounded  and 
which  it  should  help  to  overcome. 

Mrs.  General  had  no  opinions.  Her  way  of  forming  a 
mind  was  to  prevent  it  from  forming  opinions.  She  had 
a  little  circular  set  of  mental  grooves  or  rails,  on  which  she 
started  little  trains  of  other  people's  opinions,  which  never 
overtook  one  another  and  never  got  anywhere.  Even  her 
propriety  could  not  dispute  that  there  was  impropriety  in 
the  world;  but  Mrs.  General's  way  of  getting  rid  of  it  was 
to  put  it  out  of  sight,  and  make  believe  that  there  was 
no  such  thing.  This  was  another  of  her  ways  of  forming 
a  mind — to  cram  all  articles  of  difficulty  into  cupboards, 
lock  them  up,  and  say  they  had  no  existence.  It  was  the 
easiest  way  and,  beyond  all  comparison,  the  properest. 

Mrs.  General  was  not  to  be  told  of  anything  shocking. 
Accidents,  miseries,  and  offences  were  never  to  be  men- 
tioned before  her.  Passion  was  to  go  to  sleep  in  the 
presence  of  Mrs.  General,  and  blood  was  to  change  to  milk 
and  water.  The  little  that  was  left  in  the  world,  when  all 
these  deductions  were  made,  it  was  Mrs.  General's  province 
to  varnish.  In  that  formation  process  of  hers,  she  dipped 
the  smallest  of  brushes  into  the  largest  of  pots,  and  var- 
nished the  surface  of  every  object  that  came  under  con- 


132  DICKENS  AS  AN  EDUCATOR. 

sideration.     The  more  cracked  it  was,  the  more  Mrs.  Gen- 
eral varnished  it. 

There  was  varnish  in  Mrs.  General's  voice,  varnish  in 
Mrs.  General's  touch,  an  atmosphere  of  varnish  round  Mrs. 
General's  figure. 

Dickens  wished  the  training  of  the  real  inner  selfhood, 
not  the  varnishing  of  the  surface  merely.  Not  what 
George  Macdonald  describes  as  "  sandpapering  a  boy  into 
a  saint,"  but  genuine  character  development  by  the  work- 
ing out  of  the  selfhood  in  the  improvement  of  its  en- 
vironment, physically,  intellectually,  and  spiritually. 

Briggs's  education,  in  Dombey  and  Son,  had  been  of 
such  a  character  that  "  his  intellectual  fruit  had  nothing 
of  its  original  flavour  remaining."  The  character  of  his 
real  selfhood  had  been  destroyed,  not  developed,  by  his 
"  education." 

In  Our  Mutual  Friend  Mr.  Podsnap  is  used  as  a  type 
of  the  men  who  not  only  see  no  need  for  any  person  else 
forming  opinions,  but  who  take  pains  to  prevent  others 
forming  opinions,  so  far  as  possible. 

As  Mr.  Podsnap  stood  with  his  back  to  the  drawing- 
room  fire,  pulling  up  his  shirt  collar,  like  a  veritable  cock 
of  the  walk  literally  pluming  himself  in  the  midst  of  his 
possessions,  nothing  would  have  astonished  him  more  than 
an  intimation  that  Miss  Podsnap,  or  any  young  person 
properly  born  and  bred,  could  not  be  exactly  put  away  like 
the  plate,  brought  out  like  the  plate,  polished  like  the  plate, 
counted,  weighed,  and  valued  like  the  plate.  That  such  a 
young  person  could  possibly  have  a  morbid  vacancy  in  the 
heart  for  anything  younger  than  the  plate,  or  less  monoto- 
nous than  the  plate,  or  that  such  a  young  person's 
thoughts  could  try  to  scale  the  region  bounded  on  the 
north,  south,  east,  and  west  by  the  plate,  was  a  monstrous 
imagination  which  he  would  on  the  spot  have  flourished 
into  space. 

Eugene  Wrayburn's  criticism  of  his  father's  habit  of 
choosing  professions  for  his  sons  almost  as  soon  as  they 
were  born,  or  even  before,  without  the  slightest  possible 
consideration  for  their  natural  aptitudes  for  the  work  to 
which  they  were  assigned,  is  a  severe  attack  on  a  condi- 


INDIVIDUALITY.  133 

tion  which  exists  even  yet  through  the  failure  of  the 
schools  or  the  homes  to  discover  and  reveal  to  boys  and 
girls  their  highest  powers,  so  that  they  may  reach  their 
best  growth  in  school  or  college  and  choose  the  profession 
in  which  they  can  do  most  good  and  attain  their  most 
complete  evolution.  There  is  no  better  field  for  co-ordi- 
nate work  by  the  home  and  the  school  than  the  joint  study 
of  the  children  to  find  their  sphere  of  greatest  power. 
Every  child  should  be  helped  to  find  the  sphere  in  which 
he  can  most  successfully  achieve  the  highest  destiny  for 
himself  and  for  humanity. 

Eugene  Wrayburn's  father  extended  his  paternal  care 
and  forethought  for  his  children  not  only  by  choosing 
their  professions  without  regard  for  their  selfhood,  but 
by  considerately  selecting  partners  for  his  sons  without 
regard  for  their  individual  tastes. 

Eugene,  speaking  to  Mortimer  Lightwood,  said : 

"  ^[y  respected  father  has  found,  down  in  the  parental 
neighbourhood,  a  wife  for  his  not-generally-respected  son." 

"With  some  money,  of  course?" 

"  With  some  money,  of  course,  or  he  would  not  have 
found  her.  My  respected  father — let  me  shorten  the  duti- 
ful tautology  by  substituting  in  future  M.  E.  F.,  which 
sounds  military,  and  rather  like  the  Duke  of  Wellington." 

"What  an  absurd  fellow  you  are,  Eugene!  " 

"  Xot  at  all,  I  assure  you.  M.  R.  F.  having  always  in  the 
clearest  manner  provided  (as  he  calls  it)  for  his  children 
by  prearranging  from  the  hour  of  the  birth  of  each,  and 
sometimes  from  an  earlier  period,  what  the  devoted  little 
victim's  calling  and  course  in  life  should  be.  M.  R.  F.  pre- 
arranged for  myself  that  I  was  to  be  the  barrister  I  am 
(with  the  slight  addition  of  an  enormous  practice,  which 
has  not  accrued),  and  also  the  married  man  I  am  not." 

"  The  first  you  have  often  told  me." 

"  The  first  I  have  often  told  you.  Considering  mj'self 
sufficiently  incongruous  on  my  legal  eminence,  I  have  until 
now  suppressed  my  domestic  destiny.  You  know  M,  R.  F., 
but  not  as  well  as  I  do.  If  you  knew  him  as  well  as  I  do, 
he  would  amuse  you." 

"Filially  spoken,  Eugene!  " 

"  Perfectly  so,  believe  me;  and  with  every  sentiment  of 
affectionate  deference  toward  M.  R.  F.  But  if  he  amuses 
10 


134  DICKENS  AS  AN  EDUCATOR. 

me,  I  can't  help  it.  When  my  eldest  brother  was  bom, 
of  course  the  rest  of  us  knew  (I  mean  the  rest  of  us  would 
have  known,  if  we  had  been  in  existence)  that  he  w^as  heir 
to  the  family  embarrassments — we  call  it  before  company 
the  family  estate.  But  when  my  second  brother  was  going" 
to  be  born  by  and  by,  '  This,'  says  M.  R.  F.,  '  is  a  little 
pillar  of  the  church.'  Was  born,  and  became  a  pillar  of  the 
church — a  very  shaky  one.  My  third  brother  appeared 
considerably  in  advance  of  his  engagement  to  my  mother; 
but  M.  R.  F.,  not  at  all  put  out  by  surprise,  instantly  de- 
clared him  a  circumnavigator.  Was  pitchforked  into  the 
navy,  but  has  not  circumnavigated.  I  announced  myself, 
and  was  disposed  of  with  the  highly  satisfactory  results 
embodied  before  you.  When  my  younger  brother  was  half 
an  hour  old,  it  was  settled  by  M.  R.  F.  that  he  should  have 
a  mechanical  genius,  and  so  on.  Therefore  I  say  M.  R.  F. 
amuses  me." 

In  the  same  book  Bradley  Headstone's  school  is  de- 
scribed as  one  of  a  system  of  schools  in  which  "  school 
buildings,  school-teachers,  and  school  pupils  are  all  ac- 
cording to  pattern,  and  all  engendered  in  the  light  of  the 
latest  Gospel  according  to  Monotony." 

Bradley  Headstone  himself  was  a  mechanical  product 
of  a  mechanical  system  of  uniformity  that  destroyed  in- 
dependence and  individuality  of  character. 

Bradley  Headstone,  in  his  decent  black  coat  and  waist- 
coat, and  decent  white  shirt,  and  decent  formal  black  tie, 
and  decent  pantaloons  of  pepper  and  salt,  with  his  decent 
silver  watch  in  his  pocket  and  its  decent  hair  guard  round 
his  neck,  looked  a  thoroughly  decent  young  man  of  six-and- 
twenty.  He  was  never  seen  in  any  other  dress,  and  yet  there 
was  a  certain  stiffness  in  his  manner  of  wearing  this,  as  if 
there  were  a  want  of  adaptation  between  him  and  it,  re- 
calling some  mechanics  in  their  holiday  clothes.  He  had 
acquired  mechanically  a  great  store  of  teacher's  knowledge. 
He  could  do  mental  arithmetic  mechanically,  sing  at  sight 
mechanically,  blow  various  wind  instruments  mechan- 
ically, even  play  the  great  church  organ  mechanically. 
From  his  early  childhood  up,  his  mind  had  been  a  place  of 
mechanical  stowage.  The  arrangement  of  his  wholesale 
warehouse,  so  that  it  might  be  always  ready  to  meet  the 
demands  of  retail  dealers — history  here,  geography  there, 


INDIVIDUALITY.  135 

astronomy  to  the  right,  political  economy  to  the  left — 
natural  history,  the  physical  sciences,  figures,  music,  the 
lower  mathematics,  and  what  not,  all  in  their  several 
places — this  care  had  imparted  to  his  countenance  a  look 
of  care. 

Suppression  of  so  much  to  make  room  for  so  much  had 
given  him  a  constrained  manner  over  and  above. 

The  most  remarkable  description  of  a  system,  of  train- 
ing that  totally  ignored  individuality  and  chipped  and 
battered  and  moulded  and  squeezed  all  students  into  the 
same  pattern  or  mould  is  the  description  of  the  normal 
school  in  which  Mr.  Gradgrind's  teacher,  Mr.  M'Choak- 
umchild,  was  trained.  "  Mr.  M'Choakumchild  and  one 
hundred  and  forty  other  schoolmasters  had  been  lately 
turned  at  the  same  time,  in  the  same  factory,  on  the  same 
principles,  like  so  many  piano  legs." 

Volumes  could  not  make  the  sacrifice  of  individuality 
clearer  than  this  sentence  does. 

At  "  the  grinders'  school  boys  were  taught  as  par- 
rots are." 

Doctor  Blimber  was  condemned  because  in  his  system 
"  Nature  was  of  no  consequence  at  all ;  no  matter  what 
a  boy  was  intended  to  bear,  Doctor  Blimber  made  him 
bear  to  pattern  somehow  or  other." 

In  Doctor  Strong's  school  "  we  had  plenty  of  liberty." 
The  boys  had  also  "  noble  games  out  of  doors "  in  this 
model  school  of  Dickens.  Liberty  and  noble  outdoor  sports 
are  the  best  agencies  yet  revealed  to  man  for  the  devel- 
opment of  full  selfhood  in  harmony  with  the  fundamental 
law  of  education,  self- activity. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

THE  CULTURE  OF  THE  IMAGINATION. 

In  the  preface  to  the  first  number  of  Household  Words 
Dickens  said  that  one  of  the  objects  he  had  in  view  in 
publishing  the  magazine  was  to  aid  in  the  development  of 
the  imagination  of  children. 

From  the  time  of  Barnaby  Rudge  his  unconscious 
recognition  of  the  right  of  the  child  to  have  his  imagina- 
tion made  freer  and  stronger  can  be  felt  in  his  writings. 
His  conscious  recognition  of  the  absolute  necessity  of 
child  freedom  included  the  ideal  of  the  culture  of  the  im- 
agination. 

He  reached  his  educational  meridian  in  Hard  Times, 
and  the  pedagogy  of  this  book  was  devoted  almost  en- 
tirely to  child  freedom  and  the  imagination;  to  revealing 
the  fatal  error  of  Mr.  Gradgrind's  philosophy,  which 
taught  that  fact  storing  was  the  true  way  to  form  a 
child's  mind  and  character,  entirely  ignoring  the  fact  that 
feeling  and  imagination  are  the  strongest  elements  of  in- 
tellectual power  and  clearness. 

In  Bleak  House,  which  immediately  preceded  Hard 
Times,  he  gave  a  very  able  description  of  the  effects  of  the 
neglect  of  the  development  of  the  imagination  for  several 
generations  in  the  characteristics  of  the  Smallweed  family. 

The  Smallweeds  had  strengthened  themselves  in  their 
practical  character,  discarded  all  amusements,  discounte- 
nanced all  storybooks,  fairy  tales,  fictions,  and  fables,  and 
banished  all  levities  whatsoever.  Hence  the  gratifying 
fact  that  it  has  had  no  child  born  to  it,  and  that  the  com- 
plete little  men  and  women  it  has  produced  have  been 
observed  to  bear  a  likeness  to  old  monkeys  with  something 
depressing  on  their  minds. 
136 


THE  CULTL'liE   OF   THE   IMAGINATION.        137 

Mr.  Smalhveed's  grandfather  is  in  a  helpless  condition 
as  to  his  lower,  and  nearly  so  as  to  his  upper  limbs;  but 
his  mind  is  unimpaired.  It  holds,  as  well  as  it  ever  held, 
the  first  four  rules  of  arithmetic,  and  a  certain  small  col- 
lection of  the  hardest  facts.  In  respect  of  ideality,  rever- 
ence, wonder,  and  other  such  phrenological  attributes,  it 
is  no  worse  off  than  it  used  to  be.  Everything-  that  Mr. 
Smallweed's  grandfather  ever  put  away  in  his  mind  was 
a  grub  at  first,  and  is  a  grub  at  last.  In  all  his  life  he  has 
never  bred  a  single  butterfly. 

This  alone  is  a  treatise  of  great  suggestiveness  on  the 
need  of  the  development  of  the  imagination  and  the 
means  by  which  it  should  be  developed. 

Hard  Times  was  evidently  intended  to  show  the  weak- 
ness of  the  Herbartian  psychology.  Dickens  believed  in 
the  distinctive  soul  as  the  real  selfhood  of  each  child,  and 
as  the  only  true  reality  in  his  nature,  the  dominating  in- 
fluence in  his  life  and  character.  He  did  not  believe  that 
knowledge  formed  the  soul,  but  that  the  soul  transformed 
knowledge.  He  did  not  believe  that  knowledge  gave  form, 
colour,  and  tone  to  the  soul,  but  that  the  soul  gave  new 
form,  colour,  and  tone  to  knowledge.  He  ridiculed  the 
idea  that  the  educator  by  using  great  care  in  the  selection 
of  his  knowledge  could  produce  a  man  of  such  a  character 
as  he  desired;  that  ten  pounds  of  yellow  knowledge  and 
ten  pounds  of  blue  knowledge  judiciously  mixed  in  a  boy 
would  certainly  produce  twenty  pounds  of  green  manhood. 

He  believed  that  in  every  child  there  is  an  element 
"  defying  all  the  calculations  ever  made  by  man,  and  no 
more  known  to  his  arithmetic  than  his  Creator  is."  He 
did  not  agree  with  the  psychology  of  which  Mr.  Grad- 
grind  was  the  impersonation.  Mr.  Gradgrind  believed 
that  he  could  reduce  human  nature  in  all  its  complexities 
to  statistics,  and  that  "  with  his  rule,  and  a  pair  of  scales, 
and  the  multiplication  table,  he  could  weigh  and  measure 
any  parcel  of  human  nature,  and  tell  you  exactly  what  it 
comes  to." 

Mr.  Gradgrind  had  established  a  school  for  the  train- 
ing of  the  children  of  Coketown,  and  had  engaged  Mr. 
M'Choakumchild  to  teach  it.  Dickens  criticised  the  nor- 
mal school  training  of  his  time  in  his  description  of  Mr. 


138  DICKENS  AS  AN   EDUCATOR. 

M'Choakumchild's  preparation  for  the  work  of  stimulat- 
ing young  life  to  larger,  richer  growth. 

He  and  some  one  hundred  and  forty  other  school- 
masters had  been  lately  turned  at  the  same  time,  in  the 
same  factory,  on  the  same  princif)les,  like  so  many  piano- 
forte legs.  He  had  been  put  through  an  immense  variety 
of  paces,  and  had  answered  volumes  of  head-breaking  ques- 
tions. Orthography,  etymology,  syntax,  and  prosody,  bi- 
ography, astronomy,  geography  as  general  cosmography, 
the  sciences  of  compound  proportion,  algebra,  land  survey- 
ing and  levelling,  vocal  music,  and  drawing  from  models, 
were  all  at  the  ends  of  his  ten  chilled  fingers.  He  had 
worked  his  stony  way  through  her  Majesty's  Most  Honour- 
able Privy  Council's  Schedule  B,  and  had  taken  the  bloom 
off  the  higher  branches  of  mathematics  and  physical  sci- 
ence, French,  German,  Latin,  and  Greek.  He  knew  all 
about  all  the  watersheds  of  all  the  world  (whatever  they 
are),  and  all  the  histories  of  all  "the  peoples,  and  all  the 
names  of  all  the  rivers  and  mountains,  and  all  the  pro- 
ductions, manners,  and  customs  of  all  the  countries,  and  all 
their  boundaries  and  bearings  on  the  two-and-thirty  points 
of  the  compass. 

Ah!  Mr.  M'Choakumchild,  rather  overdone.  If  he  had 
only  learned  a  little  less,  how  infinitely  better  he  might 
have  taught  much  more! 

Dickens  criticised  the  lack  of  professional  training, 
and  the  fact-storing  process  which  subordinated  feeling 
and  imagination. 

Mr.  Gradgrind's  school  was  to  be  opened.  The  gov- 
ernment officer  was  present  to  examine  it.  Mr.  Gradgrind 
made  a  short  opening  address: 

"  Now,  what  I  want  is  facts.  Teach  these  boys  and 
girls  nothing  but  facts.  Facts  alone  are  wanted  in  life. 
Plant  nothing  else,  and  root  out  everything  else.  You  can 
only  form  the  minds  of  reasoning  animals  upon  facts; 
nothing  else  will  ever  be  of  any  service  to  them.  This  is 
the  principle  on  which  I  bring  up  my  own  children,  and 
this  is  the  principle  on  which  T  bring  up  these  children. 
Stick  to  facts,  sir!  " 

The  scene  was  a  plain,  bare,  monotonous  vault  of  a 
schoolroom,  and  the  speaker's  square  forefinger  empha- 
sized his  observations  by  underscoring  every  sentence  with  a 


THE   CULTURE  OF   THE   IMAGINATION.        139 

line  on  the  schoolmaster's  sleeve.  The  emphasis  was  helped 
by  the  speaker's  square  wall  of  a  forehead,  which  had  his 
eyebrows  for  its  base,  while  his  eyes  found  commodious 
cellarag"e  in  two  dark  caves,  overshadowed  by  the  wall.  The 
emphasis  was  helped  by  the  speaker's  mouth,  which  was 
wide,  thin,  and  hard  set.  The  emphasis  was  helped  by  the 
speaker's  voice,  which  was  inflexible,  dry,  and  dictatorial. 

"  In  this  life  we  want  nothing  but  facts,  sir;  nothing 
but  facts." 

The  speaker,  and  the  schoolmaster,  and  the  third  grown 
person  present,  all  backed  a  little,  and  swept  with  their 
eyes  the  inclined  plane  of  little  vessels  then  and  there 
arranged  in  order,  ready  to  have  imperial  gallons  of  facts 
poured  into  them  until  thej'  were  full  to  the  brim. 

Most  of  the  schoolrooms  of  the  world  are  yet  "  plain, 
bare,  monotonous  vaults,"  although  nearly  fifty  years  after 
Dickens  pointed  out  the  need  of  artistic  form  and  artistic 
decoration  in  schools  we  are  beginning  to  awake  to  the 
idea  that  the  architecture,  the  colouring,  and  the  art  on 
the  walls  and  in  the  cabinets  of  schools  may  influence  the 
characters  of  children  more  even  than  the  teaching. 

Mr.  Gradgrind  proceeded  to  ask  a  few  questions  of  the 
pupils,  who  in  this  new  school  were  to  be  known  by  num- 
bers— so  much  more  statistical  and  mathematical — and 
not  by  their  names. 

As  he  stood  before  the  pupils,  who  were  seated  in  rows 
on  a  gallery,  "  he  seemed  a  kind  of  cannon  loaded  to  the 
muzzle  with  facts,  and  prepared  to  blow  them  clean  out 
of  the  regions  of  childhood  at  one  discharge.  He  seemed  a 
galvanizing  apparatus,  too,  charged  with  a  grim  mechan- 
ical substitute  for  the  tender  young  imaginations  that 
were  to  be  stormed  away." 

in  the  last  sentence  Dickens  reveals  the  true  philoso- 
phy of  sustaining  and  developing  natural  and  therefore 
productive  interest,  and  explains  how,  after  destroying  it, 
teachers  try  to  galvanize  it  into  spasmodic  activity. 

"  Girl  number  twenty,"  said  Mr.  Gradgrind,  squarely 
pointing  with  his  square  forefinger.  "  I  don't  know  that 
girl.     Who  is  that  girl?  " 

"  Sissy  Jupe,  sir,"  explained  number  twenty,  blushing, 
standing  up,  and  courtesying. 


140  DICKENS  AS  AN  EDUCATOR. 

"  Sissy  is  not  a  name,"  said  Mr.  Gradgrind.  "  Don't  call 
yourself  Sissy.     Call  yourself  Cecilia." 

"  It's  father  as  calls  me  Sissy,  sir,"  returned  the  young- 
girl  in  a  trembling  voice,  and  with  another  courtesy. 

"  Then  he  has  no  business  to  do  it,"  said  Mr.  Gradgrind. 
"  Tell  him  he  mustn't.  Cecilia  Jupe.  Let  me  see.  What 
is  your  father?  " 

"  He  belongs  to  the  horse  riding,  if  you  please,  sir." 

Mr.  Gradgrind  frowned  and  waved  off  the  objectionable 
calling  with  his  hand. 

"  We  don't  want  to  know  anything  about  that  here. 
You  mustn't  tell  us  about  that  here.  Your  father  breaks 
horses,  don't  he?  " 

"  If  you  please,  sir,  when  they  can  get  any  to  break, 
they  do  break  horses  in  the  ring,   air." 

"  You  mustn't  tell  us  about  the  ring,  here.  Very  well, 
then,  describe  your  father  as  a  horsebreaker.  He  doctors 
sick  horses,  I  dare  say?  " 

"  Oh,  yes,  sir." 

"  Very  well,  then.  He  is  a  veterinary  surgeon,  a  farrier, 
and  horsebreaker.     Give  me  your  definition  of  a  horse." 

(Sissy  Jupe  thrown  into  the  greatest  alarm  by  this 
demand.) 

"  Girl  number  twenty  unable  to  define  a  horse!  "  said 
Mr.  Gradgrind  for  the  general  behoof  of  all  the  little 
pitchers.  "  Girl  number  twenty  possessed  of  no  facts  in 
reference  to  one  of  the  commonest  of  animals!  Some  boy's 
definition  of  a  horse.     Bitzer,  yours." 

Bitzer:  "  Quadruped.  Graminivorous.  Forty  teeth, 
namely,  twenty-four  grinders,  four  eyeteeth,  and  twelve 
incisors.  Sheds  coat  in  the  spring;  in  marshy  countries 
sheds  hoofs  too.    Hoofs  hard,  but  requiring  to  be  shod  with 

iron.     Age  known  by  marks   in  mouth "      Thus    (and 

much  more)  Bitzer. 

"  Now,  girl  number  twenty,"  said  Mr.  Gradgrind,  "  you 
know^  what  a  horse  is." 

The  keen  edge  of  Dickens's  sarcasm  will  be  felt  when 
it  is  remembered  that  Sissy  Jupe  was  born  among  horses, 
had  lived  with  them,  played  with  them,  and  ridden  them 
all  her  life,  but  was  "  ignorant  of  the  commonest  facts  re- 
garding a  horse."     She  could  not  define  a  horse. 

The  government  examiner  then  stepped  forward: 


THE  CULTURE   OF   THE  IMAGINATION.        141 

"  Very  well,"  said  this  g-entleman,  briskly  smiling',  and 
folding  his  arms.  "  That's  a  horse.  Xow  let  me  ask  you 
girls  and  boys,  would  you  paper  a  room  with  representa- 
tions of  horses?  " 

After  a  pause,  one  half  the  children  cried  in  chorus, 
"  Yes,  sir!  "  Upon  which  the  other  half,  seeing  in  the 
gentleman's  face  that  "  Yes  "  was  w^rong,  cried  out  in  cho- 
rus, "  No,  sir!  " — as  the  custom  is  in  these  examinations. 
"  Of  course,  no.  Why  wouldn't  you?  " 
A  pause.  One  corpulent  slow  boj',  with  a  wheezy  man- 
ner of  breathing,  ventured  the  answer,  because  he  wouldn't 
paper  a  room  at  all,  but  would  paint  it. 

"  You  must  paper  it,"  said  the  gentleman  rather  warmly. 
"  You     must     paper     it,"     said      Thomas     Gradgrind, 
"  whether  you  like  it  or  not.     Don't  tell  us  you  wouldn't 
paper  it.     What  do  you  mean,  boy?  " 

"  I'll  explain  to  you,  then,"  said  the  gentleman,  after 
another  and  a  dismal  pause,  "  why  you  wouldn't  paper  a 
room  with  representations  of  horses.  Do  you  ever  see 
horses  walking  up  and  down  the  sides  of  rooms  in  reality — 
in  fact?     Do  you?  " 

"  Yes,  sir!  "  from  one  half,  "  No,  sir!  "  from  the  other. 
"  Of  course,  no,"  said  the   gentleman,   with  an   indig- 
nant look  at  the  wrong  half.     "  Why,  then,  you  are  not  to 
see  anywhere  what  you  don't  see  in  fact;   you  are  not  to 
have   anywhere   what  you   don't   have   in   fact.      What   is 
called  taste  is  only  another  name  for  fact." 
Thomas  Gradgrind  nodded  his  approbation. 
"  This  is  a  new  principle,  a  discovery,  a  great  discov- 
ery," said  the  gentleman.     "  Now,  I'll  try  you  again.     Sup- 
pose you  were  going  to  carpet  a  room.     Would  you  use  a 
carpet  having  a  representation  of  flowers  upon  it?  " 

There  being  a  general  conviction  by  this  time  that 
"  No,  sir!  "  was  always  the  right  answer  to  this  gentleman, 
the  chorus  of  "  No  "  was  very  strong.  Only  a  few  feeble 
stragglers  said  "  Yes,"  among  them  Sissy  Jupe. 

"  Girl  number  twenty,"  said  the  gentleman,  smiling  in 
the  calm  strength  of  knowledge. 
Sissy  blushed,  and  stood  up. 

"  So  you  would  carpet  your  room — or  your  husband's 

room,  if  you  were  a  grown  woman  and  had  a  husband — w^ith 

representations  of  flowers,  would  you?    Why  would  you?  " 

"  If  you  please,  sir,  I  am  very  fond  of  flowers,"  said 

the  girl. 


142  DICKENS  AS   AN  EDUCATOR. 

"  And  is  that  why  you  would  put  tables  and  chairs  upon 
them,  and  have  people  walking  over  them  with  heavy 
boots?  " 

"  It  wouldn't  hurt  them,  sir.  They  wouldn't  crush  and 
wither,  if  you  please,  sir.  They  would  be  the  pictures  of 
what  v.as  very  pretty,  and  pleasant,  and  I  would  fancy " 

"  Ay,  ay,  ay!  But  you  mustn't  fancy,"  cried  the  gen- 
tleman, quite  elated  by  coming  so  happily  to  this  point. 
"  That's  it!     You  are  never  to  fancy." 

"  Fact,  fact,  fact,"  said  the  gentleman. 

"  Fact,  fact,  fact,"  repeated  Mr.  Gradgrind. 

"  You  are  to  be  in  all  things  regulated  and  governed," 
said  the  gentleman,  "  by  fact.  We  hope  to  have,  before 
long,  a  board  of  fact,  composed  of  commissioners  of  fact, 
\A"ho  will  force  the  people  to  be  a  people  of  fact,  and  of 
nothing  but  fact.  You  must  discard  the  word  Fancy  alto- 
gether. You  have  nothing  to  do  with  it.  You  are  not  to 
have,  in  any  object  of  use  or  ornament,  what  would  be  a 
contradiction  in  fact.  You  don't  walk  upon  flowers  in  fact; 
you  can  not  be  allowed  to  walk  upon  flowers  in  carpets. 
Y"ou  don't  find  that  foreign  birds  and  butterflies  come  and 
perch  upon  your  crockery;  you  can  not  be  permitted  to 
paint  foreign  birds  and  butterflies  upon  your  crockery. 
You  must  use  for  all  these  purposes  combinations  and 
modifications  (in  primary  colours)  of  mathematical  fig- 
ures, which  are  susceptible  of  proof  and  demonstration. 
This  is  the  new  discovery.     This  is  fact.     This  is  taste." 

Then  Mr.  M'Choakumchild  was  asked  to  teach  his  first 
lesson. 

He  went  to  work  in  this  preparatory  lesson  not  unlike 
Morgiana  in  the  Forty  Thieves:  looking  into  all  the  vessels 
ranged  before  him,  one  after  another,  to  see  what  they  con- 
tained. Say,  good  M'Choakumchild,  when  from  thy  boil- 
ing store  thou  shalt  fill  each  jar  brim  full  by  and  by,  dost 
thou  think  that  thou  wilt  always  kill  outright  the  robber 
Fancy  lurking  within — or  sometimes  only  maim  him  and 
distort  him? 

The  "  maiming  and  distorting "  of  the  imagination 
filled  Dickens  with  alarm.  He  recognised  with  great  clear- 
ness the  law  that  all  evil  springs  from  misused  good,  and 
he  knew  that  if  the  imagination  is  not  cultivated  properly 
the  child  not  only  loses  the  many  intellectual  and  spiritual 


THE   CULTURE   OF   THE  IMAGINATION.        143 

advantages  that  would  result  from  its  true  culture,  but 
that  it  is  exposed  to  the  terrible  danger  of  a  distorted 
imagination.  Tom  Gradgrind  is  used  as  a  type  of  the 
degradation  that  results  from  "  the  strangling  of  the  im- 
agination." Its  ghost  lived  on  to  drag  him  down  "  in  the 
form  of  grovelling  sensualities."  That  which,  truly  used, 
has  most  power  to  ennoble,  has  also,  when  warped  or 
dwarfed,  most  power  to  degrade. 

As  Mr.  Yarden  told  his  wife,  "  All  good  things  per- 
verted to  evil  purposes  are  worse  than  those  which  are 
naturally  bad." 

The  five  young  Gradgrinds  had  little  opportunity  to  de- 
velop their  imaginations.  They  were  watched  too  closely 
to  have  any  imaginative  plays;  they  were  not  allowed  to 
read  poetry  or  fiction;  they  heard  no  stories;  they  had  no 
fairies  or  genii  in  their  lives;  they  heard  nothing  of 
giants  or  such  false  things;  no  little  Boy  Blue  ever  blew 
his  horn  for  them;  no  Jack  Horner  took  a  plum  out  of 
any  pie  in  their  experience;  no  such  ridiculous  person  as 
Santa  Glaus  ever  put  anything  in  their  stockings;  no 
cow  ever  performed  the  impossible  feat  of  jumping  over 
the  moon,  so  far  as  they  knew ;  they  had  never  even  heard 
of  the  cow  with  the  crumpled  horn  that  tossed  the  dog 
that  worried  the  cat  that  killed  the  rat  that  ate  the  malt 
that  lay  in  the  house  that  Jack  built.  They  knew,  or  they 
could  say,  that  a  cow  was  "  a  graminivorous  ruminating 
quadruped,"  and  that  was  enough,  in  the  philosophy  of 
Mr.  Gradgrind. 

Sissy  Jupe's  father  got  into  difficulties  in  Coketown, 
and  he  became  discouraged  and  ran  away.  Mr.  Gradgrind 
was  a  good  man,  and  meant  to  do  right,  so  he  adopted 
Sissy. 

He  told  her  his  intentions  rather  bluntly: 

"  Jupe,  I  have  made  up  my  mind  to  take  you  into  my 
house,  and,  when  you  are  not  in  attendance  at  the  school, 
to  employ  you  about  Mrs.  Gradgrind,  who  is  rather  an 
invalid.  I  have  explained  to  Miss  Louisa — this  is  Miss 
Louisa — the  miserable  but  natural  end  of  your  late  career; 
and  you  are  to  expressly  understand  that  the  whole  of  that 
subject  is  past,   and  is  not  to  be  referred  to  any  more. 


144  DICKENS  AS  AN  EDUCATOR. 

From  this  time  you  begin  your  history.  You  are,  at  pres- 
ent, ignorant,  I  know." 

"  Yes,  sir,  very,"  she  answered,  courtesying-. 

"  I  shall  have  the  satisfaction  of  causing  you  to  be 
strictly  educated;  and  you  will  be  a  living  proof  to  all  who 
come  into  communication  with  you,  of  the  advantages  of 
the  training  you  will  receive.  You  will  be  reclaimed  and 
formed.  You  have  been  in  the  habit  of  reading  to  your 
father  and  those  people  I  found  you  among,  I  dare  say?  " 
said  Mr.  Gradgrind,  beckoning  her  nearer  to  him  before  he 
said  so,  and  dropping  his  voice. 

"  Only  to  father  and  Merrylegs,  sir.  At  least,  I  mean  to 
father,  when  Merrylegs  was  always  there." 

"  Never  mind  Merrylegs,  Jupe,"  said  Mr.  Gradgrind 
with  a  passing  frown.  "  I  don't  ask  about  him.  I  under- 
stand you  to  have  been  in  the  habit  of  reading  to  your 
father?  " 

"  Oh,  yes,  sir,  thousands  of  times.  They  were  the  hap- 
piest— oh,  of  all  the  happy  times  we  had  together,  sir!  " 

It  was  only  now,  when  her  grief  broke  out,  that  Louisa 
looked  at  her. 

"  And  what,"  asked  Mr,  Gradgrind  in  a  still  lower  voice^ 
"did  you  read  to  your  father,  Jupe?  " 

"  About  the  Fairies,  sir,  and  the  Dwarf,  and  the  Hunch- 
back, and  the  Genies,"  she  sobbed  out. 

"  There,"  said  Mr.  Gradgrind,  "  that  is  enough.  Never 
breathe  a  word  of  such  destructive  nonsense  any  more." 

One  night,  in  their  study  den, 

Louisa  had  been  overheard  to  begin  a  conversation  with 
her  brother  by  saying,  "  Tom,  I  wonder — "  upon  which 
Mr,  Gradgrind,  who  was  the  person  overhearing,  stepped 
forth  into  the  light,  and  said,  "  Louisa,  never  wonder!  " 
Herein  lay  the  spring  of  the  mechanical  art  and  mys- 
tery of  educating  the  reason  without  stooping  to  the  cul- 
tivation of  the  sentiments  and  affections.  Never  wonder. 
By  means  of  addition,  subtraction,  multiplication,  and 
division  settle  everything  somehow,  and  nerer  wonder. 
"  Bring  to  me,"  says  Mr.  M'Choakumchild,  "  yonder  baby 
just  able  to  walk,  and  I  will  engage  that  it  will  never 
wonder." 

Mr.  Gradgrind  and  Mr.  M'Choakumchild  deliberately 
planned,  as  a  result  of  a  false  psychology,  to  destroy  all 
foolish  dreamings  and  imaginings  and  wonderings  by  the 


THE  CULTURE   OF  THE  IMAGINATION.        145 

children.  This  same  wonder  power  is  the  mightiest  stimu- 
lus to  mental  and  spiritual  effort,  the  source  of  all  true 
interest,  man's  leader  in  his  work  of  productive  investiga- 
tion. 

Wonder  power  should  increase  throughout  the  life  of 
the  child.  Unfortunately,  the  Gradgrind  philosophy  is 
practised  by  many  educators.  The  child's  natural  wonder 
power  is  dwarfed,  and  an  unnatural  interest  is  substituted 
for  it.  Teachers  kill  the  natural  interest,  and  then  try  to 
galvanize  its  dead  body  into  temporary  activity.  The  child 
who  was  made  a  wonderer  and  a  problem  finder  by  God 
is  made  a  problem  solver  by  teachers.  His  dreamings  and 
fancies  have  been  stopped,  and  he  has  been  stored  with 
facts  and  made  "  practical," 

Mr.  Gradgrind  was  much  exercised  by  the  fact  that  the 
people  of  Coketown  did  not  read  the  scientific  and  mathe- 
matical books  in  the  library  so  much  as  poetry  and  fiction. 
It  was  a  melancholy  fact  that  after  working  for  fifteen 
hours  a  day  "  they  sat  down  to  read  mere  fables  about 
men  and  women  more  or  less  like  themselves,  and  about 
children  more  or  less  like  their  own.  They  took  De  Foe 
to  their  bosoms  instead  of  Euclid,  and  seemed  to  be,  on  the 
whole,  more  comforted  by  Goldsmith  than  by  Cocker." 
This  was  very  discouraging  to  Mr.  Gradgrind. 

One  night  Louisa  and  Tom  were  sitting  alone  con- 
versing about  themselves  and  the  way  they  were  being 
trained  by  their  father.  In  the  course  of  their  conversa- 
tion Tom  said: 

"  I  am  sick  of  my  life,  Loo;  I  hate  it  altogether,  and 
I  hate  everybody  except  you.  As  to  me,  I  am  a  donkey, 
that's  what  /  am.  I  am  as  obstinate  as  one,  I  am  more 
stupid  than  one,  I  get  as  much  pleasure  as  one,  and  I  should 
like  to  kick  like  one." 

"  Not  me,  I  hope,  Tom." 

"  No,  Loo,  I  wouldn't  hurt  you.  I  made  an  exception  of 
you  at  first.  I  don't  know  what  this — jolly  old — jaundiced 
jail  " — Tom  had  paused  to  find  a  sufiiciently  compli- 
mentary and  expressive  name  for  the  parental  roof,  and 
seemed  to  relieve  his  mind  for  a  moment  by  the  strong 
alliteration  of  this  one — "  would  be  without  you." 

"  Tom,"    said    his    sister,    after    silently    watching    the 


146  DICKENS  AS  AN  EDtJCATOR. 

sparks  a  while,  "  as  I  get  older,  and  nearly  growing  up,  I 
often  sit  wondering  here,  and  think  how  unfortunate  it  is 
for  me  that  I  can't  reconcile  you  to  home  better  than  I  am 
able  to  do.  I  don't  know  what  other  girls  know.  I  can't 
play  to  you,  or  sing  to  you.  I  can't  talk  to  you  so  as  to 
lighten  your  mind,  for  I  never  see  any  amusing  sights  or 
read  any  amusing  books  that  it  would  be  a  pleasure  or  a 
relief  to  you  to  talk  about,  when  you  are  tired." 

"  Well,  no  more  do  I.  I  am  as  bad  as  you  in  that  re- 
spect; and  I  am  a  mule  too,  which  you're  not.  If  father 
was  determined  to  make  me  either  a  prig  or  a  mule,  and  I 
am  not  a  prig,  why,  it  stands  to  reason,  I  must  be  a  mule. 
And  so  I  am." 

"  I  wish  I  could  collect  all  the  Facts  we  hear  so  much 
about,"  said  Tom,  spitefully  setting  his  teeth,  "  and  all  the 
Figures,  and  all  the  people  who  found  them  out;  and  I 
wish  I  could  put  a  thousand  barrels  of  gunpowder  under 
them  and  blow  them  all  up  together." 

Louisa  sat  looking  at  the  fire  so  long  that  Tom  asked, 
"Have  you  gone  to  sleep.  Loo?" 

"  No,  Tom,  I  am  looking  at  the  fire." 

"  What  do  you  see  in  it?  " 

"  I  don't  see  anything  in  it,  Tom,  particularly,  but  since 
I  have  been  looking  at  it  I  have  been  wondering  about  you 
and  me,  grown  up." 

"Wondering  again?"  said  Tom. 

"  I  have  such  unmanageable  thoughts,"  returned  his 
sister,  "  that  they  will  wonder." 

"  Then  I  beg  of  you,  Louisa,"  said  Mrs.  Gradgrind,  who 
had  opened  the  door  without  being  heard,  "  to  do  nothing 
of  that  description,  for  goodness'  sake,  you  inconsiderate 
girl,  or  I  shall  never  hear  the  last  of  it  from  your  father. 
And,  Thomas,  it  is  really  shameful,  with  my  poor  head 
continually  wearing  me  out,  that  a  boy  brought  up  as  you 
have  been,  and  whose  education  has  cost  what  yours  has, 
should  be  found  encouraging  his  sister  to  wonder,  when 
he  knows  his  father  has  expressly  said  that  she  was  not 
to  do  it." 

Louisa  denied  Tom's  participation  in  the  offence;  but 
her  mother  stopped  her  with  the  conclusive  answer,  "  Lou- 
isa, don't  tell  me,  in  my  state  of  health;  for  unless  j^ou  had 
been  encouraged,  it  is  morally  and  physically  impossible 
that  you  could  have  done  it." 

"  I  was  encouraged  by  nothing,  mother,  but  by  looking 


THE  CULTURE   OF   THE  IMAGINATION.        1^7 

at  the  red  sparks  dropping-  out  of  the  fire,  and  whitening 
and  dying.  It  made  me  think,  after  all,  how  short  my  life 
would  be,  and  how  little  I  could  hope  to  do  in  it." 

"Xonsensel  "  said  Mrs.  Gradgrind,  rendered  almost  en- 
ergetic. "Nonsense!  Don't  stand  there  and  tell  me  such 
stuff,  Louisa,  to  my  face,  when  you  know  very  well  that 
if  it  was  ever  to  reach  your  father's  ears  I  should  never  hear 
the  last  of  it.  After  all  the  trouble  that  has  been  taken 
with  3'oul  After  the  lectures  you  have  attended,  and  the 
experiments  you  have  seen!  After  I  have  heard  you  my- 
self, when  the  whole  of  my  right  side  has  been  benumbed, 
going  on  with  your  master  about  combustion,  and  calcina- 
tion, and  calorification,  and  I  may  say  every  kind  of  ation 
that  could  drive  a  poor  invalid  distracted,  to  hear  you  talk- 
ing in  this  absurd  way  about  sparks  and  ashes!  " 

When  a  boy  hates  home,  and  a  girl  in  her  teens  is  re- 
joicing at  the  prospect  of  a  short  life,  there  has  been  some 
serious  blunder  in  their  training. 

When  her  father  was  proposing  to  her  that  she  should 
marrj'  old  Bounderby,  Louisa  said: 

"  What  do  I  know,  father,  of  tastes  and  fancies;  of  as- 
pirations and  affections;  of  all  that  part  of  my  nature  in 
which  such  light  things  might  have  been  nourished?  What 
escape  have  I  had  from  problems  that  could  be  demon- 
strated, and  realities  that  could  be  grasped?  "  As  she  said 
it,  she  unconsciously  closed  her  hand,  as  if  upon  a  solid  ob- 
ject, and  slowly  opened  it  as  though  she  were  releasing 
dust  or  ash. 

After  her  marriage  to  Bounderby  Louisa  rarely  came 
home,  and  Dickens  gives  in  detail  a  sequence  of  thought 
that  passed  through  her  mind  on  her  approach  to  the  old 
home  after  a  long  absence.  None  of  the  true  feelings  were 
stirred  in  her  heart. 

The  dreams  of  childhood — its  airy  fables,  its  graceful, 
beautiful,  humane,  impossible  adornments  of  the  world  be- 
yond, so  good  to  be  believed  in  once,  so  good  to  be  remem- 
bered when  outgrown,  for  then  the  least  among  them  rises 
to  the  stature  of  a  great  charity  in  the  heart,  suffering 
little  children  to  come  into  the  midst  of  it,  and  to  keep 
with  their  pure  hands  a  garden  in  the  stony  ways  of  this 
world,  wherein  it  were  better  for  all  the  children  of  Adam 


148  DICKENS  AS  AN   EDUCATOR. 

that  they  should  oftener  sun  themselves,  simple  and  trust- 
ful, and  not  worldly-wise — what  had  she  to  do  with  these? 
Kemembrances  of  how  she  had  journeyed  to  the  little  that 
she  knew  by  the  enchanted  roads  of  what  she  and  millions 
of  innocent  creatures  had  hoped  and  imagined;  of  how, 
first  coming  upon  reason  through  the  tender  light  of  fancy, 
she  had  seen  it  a  beneficent  god,  deferring  to  gods  as  great 
as  itself;  not  a  grim  idol,  cruel  and  cold,  with  its  victims 
bound  hand  to  foot,  and  its  big  dumb  shape  set  up  with 
a  sightless  stare,  never  to  be  moved  by  anj'thing  but  so 
many  calculated  tons  of  leverage — what  had  she  to  do 
with  these? 

This  quotation  shows  how  clearly  Dickens  saw  the  re- 
lationship between  the  imagination  and  the  reason.  Her 
imagination  had  been  dwarfed  and  perverted;  and  her 
power  to  feel,  and  to  think,  and  to  appreciate  beauty,  and 
to  love,  and  to  see  God  and  understand  him,  was  dwarfed 
and  perverted  as  a  consequence. 

Her  poor  mother,  who  had  always  felt  that  there  was 
something  wrong  with  her  husband's  training,  but  dared 
not  oppose  him,  and  fully  supported  him  for  the  sake 
of  peace  which  never  really  came,  was  worn  out,  and  had 
almost  become  a  mental  wreck.  Her  mind  was  struggling 
with  the  one  great  question.  She  tried  and  tried  vainly 
to  find  what  the  great  defect  of  her  husband's  system  was, 
but  she  was  very  sure  it  had  a  great  weakness  somewhere. 
She  tried  to  explain  the  matter  to  Louisa  when  she  came 
to  see  her. 

"  You  learned  a  great  deal,  Louisa,  and  so  did  your 
brother.  Ologies  of  all  kinds,  from  morning  to  night.  If 
there  is  anj^  ology  left,  of  any  description,  that  has  not 
been  worn  to  rags  in  this  house,  all  I  can  say  is,  I  hope  I 
shall  never  hear  its  name." 

"  I  can  hear  you,  mother,  when  you  have  strength  to  go 
on."     This,  to  keep  her  from  fioating  away. 

"  But  there's  something — not  an  ology  at  all — that  your 
father  has  missed,  or  forgotten,  Louisa.  I  don't  know 
what  it  is.  I  have  often  sat  with  Sissy  near  me,  and 
thought  about  it.  I  shall  never  get  its  name  now.  But 
your  father  may.  It  makes  me  restless.  I  want  to  write 
to  him,  to  find  out,  for  God's  sake,  what  it  is.  Give  me  a 
pen,  give  me  a  pen." 


THE   CULTURE   OF   THE   IMAGINATION.        149 

When  Louisa,  unable  to  resist  alone  the  temptation  to 
go  with  Mr.  Harthouse,  fled  to  her  father  and  told  him 
in  such  earnest  words  that  she  cursed  the  hour  she  had 
been  born  to  submit  to  his  training,  she  said : 

"  I  don't  reproach  you,  father.  What  you  have  never 
nurtured  in  me,  you  have  never  nurtured  in  yourself;  but 
oh!  if  you  had  only  done  so  long  ago,  or  if  you  had  only 
neglected  me,  what  a  much  better  and  much  happier  crea- 
ture I  should  have  been  this  day!  " 

On  hearing  this,  after  all  his  care,  he  bowed  his  head 
upon  his  hand  and  groaned  aloud. 

"  Father,  if  you  had  known,  when  we  were  last  to- 
gether here,  what  even  I  feared  while  I  strove  against  it — 
as  it  has  been  my  task  from  infancy  to  strive  against  every 
natural  prompting  that  has  arisen  in  my  heart;  if  you 
had  known  that  there  lingered  in  my  breast  sensibilities, 
affections,  weakness  capable  of  being  cherished  into 
strength,  defying  all  the  calculations  ever  made  by  man, 
and  no  more  known  to  his  arithmetic  than  his  Creator  is — 
would  you  have  given  me  to  the  husband  whom  I  am  now 
sure  that  I  hate?" 

He  said,  "  No,  no,  my  poor  child." 

"  Would  you  have  doomed  me,  at  any  time,  to  the  frost 
and  blight  that  have  hardened  and  spoiled  me?  Would 
you  have  robbed  me — for  no  one's  enrichment — only  for  the 
greater  desolation  of  this  world — of  the  immaterial  part  of 
my  life,  the  spring  and  summer  of  my  belief,  my  refuge 
from  what  is  sordid  and  bad  in  the  real  things  around  me, 
my  school  in  which  I  should  have  learned  to  be  more 
humble,  and  more  trusting  with  them,  and  to  hope  in 
my  little  sphere  to  make  them  better?  " 

"  Oh,  no,  no!     No,  Louisa." 

"  Yet,  father,  if  I  had  been  stone  blind;  if  I  had  groped 
my  w^ay  by  my  sense  of  touch,  and  had  been  free,  while  I 
knew  the  shapes  and  surfaces  of  things,  to  exercise  my 
fancy  somewhat  in  regard  to  them,  I  should  have  been  a 
million  times  w^iser,  happier,  more  loving,  more  contented, 
more  innocent  and  human  in  all  good  respects,  than  I  am 
with  the  eyes  I  have.  Now,  hear  what  I  have  come  to  say. 
With  a  hunger  and  thirst  upon  me,  father,  which  have 
never  been  for  a  moment  appeased;  with  an  ardent  im- 
pulse toward  some  region  where  rules,  and  figures,  and 
definitions  were  not  quite  absolute,  I  have  grown  up,  bat- 
tling every  inch  of  my  way. 
11 


150  DICKENS  AS  AN  EDUCATOR. 

"  In  this  strife  I  have  almost  repulsed  and  crushed  my 
better  angel  into  a  demon.  What  I  have  learned  has  left 
me  doubting",  misbelieving",  despising,  regretting  what  I 
have  not  learned;  and  my  dismal  resource  has  been  to 
think  that  life  would  soon  go  by,  and  that  nothing  in  it 
could  be  worth  the  pain  and  trouble  of  a  contest." 

When  she  had  finished  the  story  of  her  acquaintance 
with  Mr.  Harthouse  and  his  influence  over  her,  she  said: 
"  All  that  I  know  is,  your  philosophy  and  your  teaching 
will  not  save  me.  !N'ow,  father,  you  have  brought  me  to 
this.    Save  me  by  some  other  means." 

Dickens  pictured  Mr.  Gradgrind  as  a  good,  earnest 
man,  who  desired  to  do  only  good  for  his  family. 

In  gauging  fathomless  deeps  with  his  little  mean  excise 
rod,  and  in  staggering  over  the  universe  with  his  rusty 
stiif-legged  compasses,  he  had  meant  to  do  great  things. 
Within  the  limits  of  his  short  tether  he  had  tumbled  about, 
annihilating  the  flowers  of  existence  with  greater  single- 
ness of  purpose  than  many  of  the  blatant  personages  whose 
company  he  kept. 

A  careful  study  of  what  Louisa  said  to  her  father  will 
show  that  Dickens  had  made  a  profound  study  of  Froebel's 
philosophy  of  the  feelings  and  the  imagination  which  is 
now  the  dominating  theory  of  psychology,  and  that  he 
clearly  understood  what  Wordsworth  meant  when  he 
wrote : 

"  Wbose  heart  the  holy  forms  of  young  imagination  had 
kept  pure." 

Sissy  Jupe  failed  utterly  to  satisfy  Mr.  M'Choakum- 
child  at  school.  She  could  not  remember  facts  and  dates. 
She  could  not  be  crammed  successfully,  and  she  had  a  very 
dense  head  for  figures.  "  She  actually  burst  into  tears 
when  required  (by  the  mental  process)  to  name  imme- 
diately the  cost  of  two  hundred  and  forty-seven  muslin 
caps  at  fourteen  pence  halfpenny,"  so  Mr.  Gradgrind  told 
her  she  would  have  to  leave  school. 

"  I  can  not  disguise  from  you,  Jupe,"  said  Mr.  Grad- 
grind, knitting  his  brow,  "  that  the  result  of  your  proba- 


THE   CULTURE  OP  THE  IMAGINATION.        151 

tion  there  has  disappointed  me — has  greatly  disappointed 
me.  You  have  not  acquired,  under  Mr.  and  Mrs.  M'Choak- 
umchild,  anything  like  that  amount  of  exact  knowledge 
which  I  look  for.  You  are  extremely  deficient  in  your 
facts.  Your  acquaintance  with  figures  is  very  limited. 
You  are  altogether  backward,  and  below  the  mark." 

"  I  am  sorry,  sir,"  she  returned;  "  but  I  know  it  is  quite 
true.     Yet  I  have  tried  hard,  sir." 

"  Yes,"  said  Mr.  Gradgrind,  "  yes,  I  believe  you  have 
tried  hard;  I  have  observed  you,  and  I  can  find  no  fault  in 
that  respect." 

"  Thank  j'ou,  sir.  I  have  thought  sometimes  " — Sissy 
very  timid  here — "  that  perhaps  I  tried  to  learn  too  much, 
and  that  if  I  had  asked  to  be  allowed  to  try  a  little  less,  I 
might  have " 

"  No,  Jupe,  no,"  said  Mr.  Gradgrind,  shaking  his  head 
in  his  profoundest  and  most  eminently  practical  way.  "  No. 
The  course  you  pursued,  you  pursued  according  to  the  sys- 
tem— the  system — and  there  is  no  more  to  be  said  about  it. 
I  can  only  suppose  that  the  circumstances  of  your  early 
life  were  too  unfavourable  to  the  development  of  your 
reasoning  powers,  and  that  we  began  too  late.  Still,  as  I 
have  said  already,  I  am  disappointed." 

"  I  wish  I  could  have  made  a  better  acknowledgment, 
sir,  of  your  kindness  to  a  poor  forlorn  girl  who  had  no 
claim  upon  you,  and  of  your  protection  of  her." 

"  Don't  shed  tears,"  said  Mr.  Gradgrind.  "  Don't  shed 
tears.  I  don't  complain  of  you.  You  are  an  affectionate, 
earnest,  good  young  woman,  and — and  we  must  make  that 
do." 

How  blind  a  man  must  become  when  his  faith  in  a  sys- 
tem or  a  philosophy  can  make  him  estimate  fact  storing 
so  much  and  character  forming  so  little !  Sissy  could  not 
learn  facts,  therefore  Mr.  Gradgrind  mourned.  The  fact 
that  she  was  "  affectionate,  earnest,  good,"  was  only  a 
trifling  matter — a  very  poor  substitute  for  brilliant  ac- 
quirements in  dates  and  facts  and  mental  arithmetic. 

Sissy  became,  however,  the  good  angel  of  the  Grad- 
grind household.  She  helped  Louisa  back  to  a  partial  hope 
and  sweetness;  she  gave  the  younger  children,  with  Mr. 
Gradgrind's  permission,  the  real  childhood  of  freedom 
and  imagination,  which  the  older  children  had  lost  for- 


152  DICKENS  AS  AN  EDUCATOR. 

ever ;  she  brightened  the  lives  even  of  Mrs.  and  Mr.  Grad- 
grind,  and  she  helped  to  save  Tom  from  the  disgrace  of 
his  crime. 

The  closing  picture  of  the  book,  one  of  the  most  beau- 
tiful Dickens  ever  painted,  tells  the  story  of  Sissy's  future : 

But  happy  Sissy's  happy  children  loving  her;  all  chil- 
dren loving  her;  she,  grown  learned  in  childish  lore;  think- 
ing no  innocent  and  pretty  fancy  ever  to  be  despised;  try- 
ing hard  to  know^  her  humbler  fellows-creatures,  and  to 
beautify  their  lives  of  machinery  and  reality  with  those  im- 
aginative graces  and  delights,  without  which  the  heart  of 
infancy  will  wither  up,  the  sturdiest  physical  manhood  will 
be  morally  stark  death,  and  the  plainest  national  pros- 
perity figures  can  show  will  be  the  Writing  on  the  Wall — 
she  holding  this  course  as  part  of  no  fantastic  vow,  or 
bond,  or  brotherhood,  or  sisterhood,  or  pledge,  or  covenant, 
or  fancy  dress,  or  fancy  fair;  but  simply  as  a  duty  to  be 
done.  Did  Louisa  see  these  things  of  herself?  These 
things  were  to  be! 

Dear  reader!  It  rests  with  you  and  me  whether,  in 
our  two  fields  of  action,  similar  things  shall  be  or  not.  Let 
them  be!  We  shall  sit  with  lighter  bosoms  on  the  hearth, 
to  see  the  ashes  of  our  fires  turn  gray  and  cold. 

And  the  educational  Gradgrinds  of  the  present  time 
sneer  at  Dickens  because  he  puts  the  early  training  of  a 
circus  above  the  early  training  of  a  Christian  home  like 
Mr.  Gradgrind's.  "  The  logical  consequence  of  such  rea- 
soning," they  say,  "  would  be  that  all  children  should  be 
trained  in  circuses." 

Oh,  no!  Dickens  did  not  recommend  a  circus  as  a 
good  place  to  train  children.  But  he  did  believe  that  even 
a  circus  is  a  thousand  times  better  than  a  so-called  Chris- 
tian home  for  the  true  and  complete  development  of  a 
child,  if  in  the  circus  the  child  is  free  and  happy,  and  is 
allowed  full  play  for  her  imagination,  and  is  not  arrested 
in  her  development  by  rote  storing  of  facts  and  too  early 
drill  in  arithmetic,  and  has  the  rich  productive  love  of 
even  one  parent,  and  has  blessed  opportunities  for  loving 
service  for  her  pets  and  her  friends ;  and  if  in  the  so-called 
Christian  home  she  is  robbed  of  these  privileges  even  in 
the  name  of  religion. 


THE   CULTURE   OF   THE   IMAGINATION.        153 

Sissy  had  a  blessed,  free  childhood.  She  lived  in  her 
own  imaginary  world  most  of  the  time;  she  had  the  deep 
love  of  her  kind-hearted  father  and  of  Merrylegs,  the  dog ; 
she  read  poetry  and  fairy  tales;  she  attended  to  her 
fathers  needs;  she  had  many  opportunities  to  show  her 
love  in  loving  service  for  Merrylegs  and  her  father;  and 
she  was  not  dwarfed  by  fact  cramming  and  formal  drill. 
Her  chances  of  reaching  a  true  womanhood  were  excel- 
lent, and  when  she  got  the  opportunity  for  the  revelation 
of  character,  she  had  character  to  reveal,  and  her  character 
developed  in  its  revelation  for  the  benefit  and  happiness 
of  others.  Hers  was  the  true  Christian  training  after  all. 
Homes  and  schools  with  such  training  are  centres  of  great 
power. 

One  of  the  strongest  pleas  ever  made  for  the  cultiva- 
tion of  the  imagination,  "  the  fancies  and  affections,"  and 
for  the  teaching  of  literature,  art,  and  music  in  the  schools 
was  given  in  Hard  Times,  which  is  an  industrial  as  well  as 
an  educational  story.  Indeed,  Dickens  saw  that  the  true 
solution  of  industrial  questions  was  the  proper  training  of 
the  race.  iSTo  attack  on  the  meanness  of  utilitarianism  and 
no  exposition  of  its  terrible  dangers  could  be  more  incisive 
and  philosophical  than  the  following  wonderful  sentences : 

Utilitarian  economists,  skeletons  of  schoolmasters,  com- 
missioners of  fact,  genteel  and  used-up  infidels,  gabblers 
of  many  little  dog's-eared  creeds,  the  poor  you  will  have 
always  "v\'ith  j'ou.  Cultivate  in  them,  Avhile  there  is  3'et 
time,  the  utmost  graces  of  the  fancies  and  affections,  to 
adorn  their  lives  so  much  in  need  of  ornament;  or,  in  the 
moment  of  your  triumph,  when  romance  is  utterly  driven 
out  of  their  souls,  and  they  and  a  bare  existence  stand  face 
to  face,  Reality  will  take  a  wolfish  turn,  and  make  an  end 
of  you! 

Altogether  Hard  Times  is  one  of  the  most  remarkable 
educational  books  ever  written. 

Dickens  made  a  plea  for  mental  refreshment  and  recre- 
ation for  the  working  classes  in  Nobody's  Story,  similar  to 
that  made  in  Hard  Times: 

The  workingman  appealed  to  the  Bigwig  family,  and 
said:   "  We  are  a  labouring  people,  and  I  have  a  glimmer- 


15tl:  DICKENS  AS  AN  EDUCATOR. 

ing  suspicion  in  me  that  labouring*  people  of  whatever  con- 
dition were  made — by  a  higher  intelligence  than  yours,  as 
I  poorly  understand  it — to  be  in  need  of  mental  refresh- 
ment and  recreation.  See  what  we  fall  into,  when  we 
rest  without  it.  Come!  Amuse  me  harmlessly,  show  me 
something,  give  me  an  escape!  " 

Beautiful  Lizzie  Hexam,  one  of  the  latest  and  highest 
creations  of  Dickens,  longed  to  read,  but  she  did  not  learn 
to  do  so  because  her  father  objected  so  bitterly,  and  she 
wished  to  avoid  everything  that  would  weaken  the  bond  of 
love  between  them,  lest  she  might  lose  her  influence  for 
good  over  him. 

Her  brother  Charley  said  to  her: 

"  You  said  you  couldn't  read  a  book,  Lizzie.  Your 
library  of  books  is  the  hollow  down  by  the  flare,  I  think." 

"  I  should  be  very  glad  to  be  able  to  read  real  books.  I 
feel  my  want  of  learning  very  much,  Charley.  But  I  should 
feel  it  much  more,  if  I  didn't  know  it  to  be  a  tie  between 
me  and  father." 

Dickens  was  revealing  the  strange  fact  that  at  first 
many  poor  and  ignorant  parents  strenuously  objected  to 
their  children  being  educated;  and  he  was  at  the  same 
time  showing  that  great  character  growth  could  take  place 
even  without  the  power  to  read.  Lizzie's  self-sacrifice  for 
her  father  and  Charley  was  a  true  revelation  of  the  divin- 
ity in  her  nature.  Though  she  had  not  read  books,  she  had 
read  a  great  deal  by  her  imagination  from  "the  hollow 
down  by  the  flare." 

As  Dickens  grew  older  he  saw  more  clearly  the  value 
of  the  dreaming  of  childhood  while  awake,  of  the  deep 
reveries  into  which  young  people  often  fall,  and  ought  to 
fall,  so  that  they  become  oblivious  to  their  environment, 
and  sweep  through  the  universe  in  strange  imaginings, 
that  after  all  are  very  real.  He  was  fond  of  drawing  pic- 
tures of  young  people  giving  free  rein  to  their  imagina- 
tions, unchecked  by  intermeddling  adulthood,  while  they 
watched  the  glowing  fire,  or  the  ashes  falling  away  from 
the  dying  coals.  Lizzie's  library  from  which  she  got  her 
culture  was  in  "  the  hollow  down  by  the  flare." 


THE  CULTURE  OF  THE  IMAGINATION.        155 

Crippled  little  Jenny  Wren,  the  doll's  dressmaker,  said 
to  Lizzie  Hexam  one  day,  when  Eugene  Wrayburn  was 
visiting  them: 

"  I  wonder  how  it  happens  that  when  I  am  work,  work, 
working  here,  all  alone  in  the  summer  time,  I  smell 
flowers." 

"  As  a  commonplace  individual,  I  should  say,"  Eugene 
suggested  languidly — for  he  was  growing  weary  of  the  per- 
son of  the  house — "  that  you  smell  flowers  because  you  do 
smell  flowers." 

"  Xo,  I  don't,"  said  the  little  creature,  resting  one  arm 
upon  the  elbow  of  her  chair,  resting  her  chin  upon  that 
hand,  and  looking  vacantly  before  her;  "  this  is  not  a 
flowery  neighbourhood.  It's  anything  but  that.  And  yet, 
as  I  sit  at  work,  I  smell  miles  of  flowers.  I  smell  roses  till 
I  think  I  see  the  rose  leaves  lying  in  heaps,  bushels,  on  the 
floor.  I  smell  fallen  leaves  till  I  put  down  my  hand — so — and 
expect  to  make  them  rustle.  I  smell  the  white  and  the 
pink  May  in  the  hedges,  and  all  sorts  of  flowers  that  I  never 
was  among.  For  I  have  seen  very  few  flowers  indeed  in 
my  life." 

"  Pleasant  fancies  to  have,  Jennie  dear!  "  said  her 
friend,  with  a  glance  toward  Eugene  as  if  she  would  have 
asked  him  whether  they  were  given  the  child  in  compensa- 
tion for  her  losses. 

"  So  I  think,  Lizzie,  when  they  come  to  me.  And  the 
birds  I  hear!  Oh!  "  cried  the  little  creature,  holding  out 
her  hand  and  looking  upward,  "  how  they  sing!  " 

How  life  in  any  stage  might  be  filled  with  richness  and 
joy,  if  imaginations  were  stored  with  apperceptive  ele- 
ments and  allowed  to  reconstruct  the  universe  in  our  fan- 
cies !    How  truly  real  our  fancies  might  become ! 

In  A  Child's  Dream  of  a  Star  Dickens  gives  an  ex- 
quisite picture  of  the  influence  of  imagination  in  spiritual 
evolution. 

There  was  once  a  child,  and  he  strolled  about  a  good 
deal,  and  thought  of  a  number  of  things.  He  had  a  sister, 
who  was  a  child  too,  and  his  constant  companion.  These 
two  used  to  wonder  all  day  long.  They  wondered  at  the 
beauty  of  the  flowers;  they  wondered  at  the  height  and 
blueness  of  the  sky;   they  wondered  at  the  depth  of  the 


156  DICKENS   AS  AN  EDUCATOR. 

bright  water;  they  wondered  at  the  goodness  and  the 
power  of  God  who  made  the  lovely  world. 

They  used  to  say  to  one  another,  sometimes.  Sup- 
posing all  the  children  upon  earth  were  to  die,  would  the 
flowers,  and  the  water,  and  the  sky  be  sorry?  They  be- 
lieved they  would  be  sorry.  For,  said  they,  the  buds  are 
the  children  of  the  flowers,  and  the  little  playful  streams 
that  gambol  down  the  hillsides  are  the  children  of  the 
water;  and  the  smallest  bright  specks  playing  at  hide  and 
seek  in  the  sky  all  night,  must  surely  be  the  children  of 
the  stars;  and  they  would  all  be  grieved  to  see  their  play- 
mates, the  children  of  men,  no  more. 

There  was  one  clear  shining  star  that  used  to  come 
out  in  the  sky  before  the  rest,  near  the  church  spire,  above 
the  graves.  It  was  larger  and  more  beautiful,  they  thought, 
than  all  the  others,  and  every  night  they  watched  for  it, 
standing  hand  in  hand  at  a  window.  Whoever  saw  it 
first  cried  out,  "  I  see  the  star!  "  And  often  they  cried 
out  both  together,  knowing  so  well  when  it  would  rise, 
and  where.  So  they  grew  to  be  such  friends  with  it,  that, 
before  lying  down  in  their  beds,  they  always  looked 
out  once  again  to  bid  it  good  night;  and  when  they  were 
turning  round  to  sleep  they  used  to  say,  "  God  bless  the 
star!  " 

But  while  she  was  still  very  young,  oh  very,  very 
young,  the  sister  drooped,  and  came  to  be  so  very  weak 
that  she  could  no  longer  stand  in  the  window  at  night; 
and  then  the  child  looked  sadly  out  by  himself,  and  when 
he  saw  the  star,  turned  round  and  said  to  the  patient  pale 
face  on  the  bed,  "  I  see  the  star!  "  and  then  a  smile  would 
come  ujion  the  face,  and  a  little  weak  voice  used  to  say, 
"  God  bless  my  brother  and  the  star!  " 

Dickens  had  shown  his  recognition  of  the  inestimable 
valne  of  the  imagination,  and  the  importance  of  giving  it 
free  play  and  of  doing  everything  possible  to  stimulate 
its  activity  by  freedom,  and  story,  and  play,  and  literature, 
music,  and  art,  but  his  description  of  Jemmy  Jackman 
Lirriper's  training  shows  a  keener  appreciation  than  any 
of  his  other  writings  of  the  value  of  the  child's  games  in 
which  personation  is  the  leading  characteristic;  in  which 
spools,  or  spoons,  or  blocks,  or  sticks  are  people  or  ani- 
mals, with  regular  names  and  distinct  characteristics  and 
responsible  duties,  and  in  which  chairs  and  tables  and 


THE   CULTURE   OF   THE  IMAGINATION.        157 

boxes  are  coaches,  or  steamboats,  or  railway  trains.  No 
friends  are  ever  more  real  than  those  of  the  child's  crea- 
tive imagination,  with  things  to  represent  them;  no  rides 
ever  give  greater  delight  than  those  rides  in  trains  that 
move  only  in  the  imaginations  of  the  children,  who  con- 
struct them  by  placing  the  chairs  in  a  row,  and  who  act 
as  engineers,  conductors,  and  brakemen.  Such  games 
form  the  best  elements  out  of  which  the  child's  life  power 
can  be  made,  especially  if  the  adulthood  of  his  home  sym- 
pathizes with  him  in  his  enterprises.  They  afford  an 
outlet  for  his  imaginative  plans.  In  them  he  forms  new 
worlds  of  his  own,  which  are  adapted  to  his  stage  of  de- 
velopment, and  in  which  he  can  be  the  creator  and  the 
centre  of  executive  influence. 

Jemmy  Jackman  Lirriper's  training  was  ideal  in  most 
of  his  home  life,  though  he  had  no  father  or  mother  to 
love  and  guide  him. 

The  miles  and  miles  that  me  and  the  Major  have  trav- 
elled with  Jemmy  in  the  dusk  between  the  lights  are  not 
to  be  calculated,  Jemmy  driving  on  the  coach  box,  which 
is  the  Major's  brass-bound  writing  desk  on  the  table,  me 
inside  in  the  easj'-chair,  and  the  Major  Guard  up  behind 
with  a  brown-paper  horn  doing  it  really  wonderful.  I  do- 
assure  you,  my  dear,  that  sometimes  when  I  have  taken  a 
few  winks  in  my  place  inside  the  coach  and  have  come 
half  awake  by  the  flashing  light  of  the  fire  and  have  heard 
that  precious  pet  driving  and  the  Major  blowing  up  be- 
hind to  have  the  change  of  horses  ready  when  we  got  to 
the  Inn,  I  have  believed  we  w^ere  on  the  old  North  Road 
that  my  poor  Lirriper  knew  so  well.  Then  to  see  that 
child  and  the  Major  both  wrapped  up  getting  down  to 
warm  their  feet  and  going  stamping  about  and  having 
glasses  of  ale  out  of  the  paper  match  boxes  on  the  chim- 
ney piece,  is  to  see  the  Major  enjoying  it  fully  as  much  as 
the  child  I  am  very  sure,  and  it's  equal  to  any  play  when 
Coachee  opens  the  coach  door  to  look  in  at  me  inside  and 
say  "  Wery  'past  that  'tage. — 'Frightened  old  lady?" 

Such  plays  as  Dickens  here  describes  make  one  of  the 
greatest  differences  between  a  real  childhood  and  a  barren 
childhood.  The  lack  of  opportunities  for  such  perfect 
plays  and  such  complete  sjTupathy  in  their  plays  gives  to 


158  DICKENS   AS  AN   EDUCATOR. 

the  faces  of  orphan  children  brought  up  in  institutions 
the  distinctive  look  which  marks  them  everywhere,  so 
that  they  can  be  easily  recognised  by  experienced  students 
of  happy  childhood. 

But  Jemmy's  make  believe  was  not  ruthlessly  cut  short 
with  his  early  childhood.  He  continued  his  imaginative 
operations,  or  it  might  make  it  clearer  to  say  his  operative 
imaginations,  after  he  went  to  school;  and  those  beautiful 
old  people,  Mrs.  Lirriper  and  Major  Jackman,  continued 
their  interest,  their  real,  perfectly  sympathetic  interest 
in  his  plans. 

Neither  should  I  tell  you  any  news,  my  dear,  in  tell- 
ing you  that  the  Major  is  still  a  fixture  in  the  Parlours 
quite  as  much  so  as  the  roof  of  the  house,  and  that  Jemmy 
is  of  boys  the  best  and  brightest,  and  has  ever  had  kept 
from  him  the  cruel  story  of  his  poor  jDretty  young  mother, 
Mrs.  Edson,  being  deserted  in  the  second  floor  and  dying 
in  my  arms,  fully  believing  that  I  am  his  born  Gran  and 
him  an  orphan;  though  what  with  engineering  since  he 
took  a  taste  for  it,  and  him  and  the  Major  making  Loco- 
motives out  of  parasols,  broken  iron  pots,  and  cotton  reels, 
and  them  absolutely  a-getting  off  the  line  and  falling  over 
the  table  and  injuring  the  jjassengers  almost  equal  to  the 
originals,  it  really  is  quite  wonderful.  And  when  I  says 
to  the  Major,  "  Major,  can't  you  by  any  means  give  us  a 
communication  with  the  guard?  "  the  Major  says,  quite 
huffy,  "  No,  madam,  it's  not  to  be  done  ";  and  when  I 
says,  "Why  not?"  the  Major  says,  "That  is  betw^een  us 
who  are  in  the  Railw^ay  Interest,  madam,  and  our  friend, 
the  Eight  Honourable  Vice-President  of  the  Board  of 
Trade  ";  and  if  you'll  believe  me,  my  dear,  the  Major  wrote 
to  Jemmy  at  School  to  consult  him  on  the  answ^er  I 
should  have  before  I  could  get  even  that  amount  of  unsat- 
isfactoriness  out  of  the  man,  the  reason  being  that  when 
we  first  began  with  the  little  model  and  the  w^orking  sig- 
nals beautiful  and  perfect  (being  in  general  as  w^rong  as 
the  real),  and  when  I  says,  laughing,  "What  appointment 
am  I  to  hold  in  this  undertaking,  gentlemen?  "  Jemmy 
hugs  me  round  the  neck  and  tells  me,  dancing,  "  You 
shall  be  the  Public,  Gran,"  and  consequently  they  put  upon 
me  just  as  much  as  ever  they  like,  and  I  sit  a-growling  in 
my  easy-chair. 

My  dear,  whether  it  is  that  a  grown  man  as  clever  as 


THE  CULTURE   OF   THE   IMAGINATION.        I59 

the  Major  can  not  g-ive  half  his  heart  and  mind  to  any- 
thing"— even  a  plaything — but  must  get  into  right  down 
earnest  with  it,  whether  it  is  so  or  whether  it  is  not  so,  I 
do  not  undertake  to  say;  but  Jemmy  is  far  outdone  bj"  the 
serious  and  believing  ways  of  the  Major  in  the  manage- 
ment of  the  United  Grand  Junction  Lirriper  and  Jackman 
Great  Norfolk  Parlour  Line,  "  for,"  says  mj^  Jemmy  with 
the  sparkling  eyes  when  it  was  christened,  "  we  must 
have  a  whole  mouthful  of  name,  Gran,  or  our  dear  old 
Public  " — and  there  the  young  rogue  kissed  me — "  won't 
stump  up."  So  the  Public  took  the  shares — ten  at  nine- 
pence,  and  immediately  when  that  was  spent  twelve  Pref- 
erence at  one  and  sixpence — and  they  were  all  signed  by 
Jemmy  and  countersigned  by  the  ^lajor,  and  between  our- 
selves much  better  worth  the  money  than  some  shares  I 
have  paid  for  in  my  time.  In  the  same  holidays  the  line 
was  made  and  worked  and  opened  and  ran  excursions  and 
collisions  and  had  burst  its  boilers  and  all  sorts  of  acci- 
dents and  offences  all  most  regular,  correct,  and  pretty. 
The  sense  of  responsibility  entertained  by  the  ^Major  as  a 
military  stj'le  of  station  master,  my  dear,  starting  the  down 
train  behind  time  and  ringing  one  of  those  little  bells  that 
you  buy  with  the  little  coal  scuttles  off  the  tray  round  the 
man's  neck  in  the  street,  did  him  honour;  but  noticing  the 
Major  of  a  night  when  he  is  writing  out  his  monthly  re- 
port to  Jemmj^  at  school  of  the  state  of  the  Rolling  Stock 
and  the  Permanent  Way,  and  all  the  rest  of  it  (the  whole 
kept  upon  the  ^Major's  sideboard  and  dusted  with  his  own 
hands  every  morning  before  varnishing  his  boots),  I  notice 
him  as  full  of  thought  and  care,  as  full  can  be,  and  frown- 
ing in  a  fearful  manner;  but,  indeed,  the  ^lajor  does  noth- 
ing by  halves,  as  witness  his  great  delight  in  going  out  sur- 
veying with  Jemmy  when  he  has  Jemmy  to  go  with,  carry- 
ing a  chain  and  a  measuring  tape,  and  driving  I  don't  know^ 
what  improvements  right  through  Westminster  Abbey,  and 
fully  believed  in  the  streets  to  be  knocking  everything  up- 
side down  by  Act  of  Parliament.  As  please  Heaven  will 
come  to  pass  when  Jemmy  takes  to  that  as  a  profession! 

The  Major's  participation  in  the  plans  of  Jemmy  is  a 
good  ilhistration  of  the  sympathy  that  Froebel  and  Dick- 
ens felt  for  childhood,  a  sympathy  luith,  not  for,  the  child. 
It  meant  more  than  approval — it  meant  co-operation,  part- 
nership. 


160  DICKENS  AS  AN  EDUCATOR. 

Some  educators  would  criticise  Dickens  for  allowing 
the  Major  to  make  the  locomotives  with  parasols,  broken 
pots,  and  cotton  reels.  They  teach  that  Jemmy  should 
have  made  these  himself.  Dickens  was  away  beyond  such 
a  narrow  view  as  this.  The  child  at  first  has  much  more 
power  to  plan  than  to  execute.  To  leave  him  to  himself 
means  the  failure  of  his  plans  and  the  irritation  of  his 
temper.  It  is  a  terrible  experience  for  a  child  to  get  the 
habit  of  failure.  The  wise  adult  will  enter  into  partner- 
ship with  the  child  to  aid  in  carrying  out  the  child's  plans. 
He  will  not  even  make  suggestions  of  changes  in  plans 
when  he  sees  how  they  might  be  improved.  The  plans  and 
the  leadership  should  be  absolutely  the  child's  own.  The 
adult  should  be  an  assistant,  and  that  only,  when  skill  is 
required  beyond  that  possessed  by  the  child — either  when 
the  mechanical  work  is  too  difficult  for  the  child  or  when 
more  than  one  person  is  needed  to  execute  his  plan. 

The  adult  may  sometimes  lead  the  child  indirectly  to 
a  change  of  plan,  but  he  should  not  do  it  by  direct  sugges- 
tion. The  joy  is  lost  for  the  child  when  he  becomes  con- 
scious of  the  adult  as  interfering  even  sympathetically 
with  his  own  personality.  There  is  a  great  deal  of  well- 
intentioned  dwarfing  of  childhood. 

The  consciousness  of  partnership,  of  unity,  of  sym- 
pathetic co-operation,  is  the  best  result  of  such  blessed 
work  as  the  Major  did  with  Jemmy  in  carrying  out  Jem- 
my's plans.  He  is  the  child's  best  friend  who  most  wisely 
and  most  thoroughly  develops  his  imagination  as  a  basis 
for  all  intellectual  strength  and  clearness,  and  for  the 
highest  spiritual  growth.  He  is  the  wealthiest  man  who 
sees  diamonds  in  the  dewdrops  and  unsullied  gold  in  the 
sunset  tints. 

David  Copperfield  tells  the  names  of  the  wonderful 
books  he  found  in  his  father's  blessed  little  room,  and 
describes  their  influence  upon  his  life. 

They  kept  alive  my  fancy  and  my  hope  of  something 
beyond  that  place  and  time — they  and  the  Arabian  Nights 
and  the  Tales  of  the  Genii.  It  is  curious  to  me  how  I 
could  ever  have  consoled  myself  under  my  small  troubles 
(which  were  great  troubles  to  me)  by  impersonating  my 


THE  CULTURE   OF   THE   IMAGINATION.        161 

favourite  characters  in  them,  as  I  did,  and  by  putting-  Mr. 
and  Miss  Murdstone  into  all  the  bad  ones,  which  I  did,  too. 
I  have  been  Tom  Jones — a  child's  Tom  Jones,  a  harmless 
creature — for  a  week  together.  I  have  sustained  my  own 
idea  of  Eoderick  Eandom  for  a  month  at  a  stretch,  I  verily 
believe. 

"  Let  us  end  with  the  Boy's  story,"  said  Mrs.  Lirriper, 
"  for  the  Boy's  story  is  the  best  that  is  ever  told." 

There  are  no  other  stories  so  enchanting,  or  so  stimu- 
lating, as  the  stories  that  fill  the  imaginations  of  child- 
hood. 


CHAPTER  IX. 

SYMPATHY   WITH   CHILDHOOD. 

The  dominant  element  in  Dickens's  character  was  sym- 
pathy with  childhood,  not  merely  for  it.  He  had  the  pro- 
ductive sympathy  that  feels  and  thinks  from  the  child's 
standpoint. 

The  illustration  just  given  of  Major  Jackman's  co- 
operative sympathy  with  Jemmy  Lirriper  in  the  perfect 
carrying  out  of  what  to  most  people  would  have  been 
only  "  the  foolish  ideas  "  of  a  child,  as  sincerely  as  if  he 
had  been  executing  commissions  from  the  prime  min- 
ister, is  an  excellent  exemplification  of  the  true  ideal  of 
sympathy  in  practice.  The  Major  was  not  working  for 
Jemmy's  amusement  merely;  he  was  a  very  active  and 
genuinely  interested  partner  with  Jemmy.  "  Jemmy  was 
far  outdone  by  the  serious  and  believing  ways  of  the 
Major "  in  the  imaginative  plays  which  were  the  most 
real  life  of  Jemmy.  Such  was  the  sympathy  of  Dickens 
with  his  own  children ;  such  sympathy  he  believed  to  be  the 
most  productive  power  in  the  teacher  or  child  trainer  for 
beneficent  influence  on  the  character  of  the  child. 

Thpre  is  no  other  characteristic  of  his  writings  so 
marked  as  his  broad  sympathy  with  childhood.  Sympathy 
was  the  origin  of  all  he  wrote  against  coercion  in  all  its 
dread  forms,  of  all  he  wrote  about  robbing  children  of  a 
real  childhood,  about  the  dwarfing  of  individuality,  about 
the  strangling  of  the  imagination,  about  improper  nutri- 
tion, about  all  forms  of  neglect,  and  cruelty,  and  bad 
training.  The  more  fully  his  nature  is  known  the  more 
deeply  he  is  loved,  because  of  his  great  love  for  the  child. 

From  the  beginning  of  his  educational  work  his  over- 
flowing, practical  sympathy  is  revealed. 
162 


SYMPATHY    WITH   CHILDHOOD.  163 

He  tells  us  in  the  preface  to  ISTickleby  that  his  study 
of  the  Yorkshire  schools  and  his  delineation  of  the  char- 
acter of  Squeers  resulted  from  a  resolution  formed  in 
childhood,  which  he  was  led  to  form  by  seeing  a  boy  "  with 
a  suppurated  abscess  caused  by  its  being  ripped  open  by 
his  Yorkshire  guide,  philosopher,  and  friend  with  an  inky 
penknife," 

The  sympathy  of  jSTicholas,  and  John  Browdie,  and  the 
Cheeryble  brothers  with  Smike  and  all  suffering  child- 
hood are  strong  features  of  the  book. 

Dickens's  own  sympathy  has  cleared  his  mind  of  many 
fogs  that  still  linger  in  some  minds  regarding  a  parent's 
rights  in  regard  to  his  child,  even  though  the  parent  has 
never  recognised  any  of  the  child's  rights.  The  movement 
in  favour  of  the  recognition  of  the  rights  of  children 
even  against  their  parents  began  with  Dickens.  When 
Nicholas  discovered  that  Smike  was  the  son  of  his  uncle, 
Ralph  Xickleby,  he  went  to  consult  brother  Charles 
Cheeryble  in  regard  to  his  duty  under  the  circumstances. 

He  mociestly,  but  firmly,  expressed  his  hope  that  the 
good  old  gentleman  would,  under  such  circumstances  as 
he  described,  hold  him  justified  in  adopting  the  extreme 
course  of  interfering  between  parent  and  child,  and  up- 
holding the  latter  in  his  disobedience;  even  though  his 
horror  and  dread  of  his  father  might  seem,  and  would 
doubtless  be  represented,  as  a  thing  so  repulsive  and  un- 
natural as  to  render  those  who  countenanced  him  in  it  fit 
objects  of  general  detestation  and  abhorrence. 

"  So  deeply  rooted  does  this  horror  of  the  man  appear 
to  be,"  said  Nicholas,  "  that  I  can  hardly  believe  he  really 
is  his  son.  Nature  does  not  seem  to  have  implanted  in  his 
breast  one  lingering  feeling  of  affection  for  him,  and  sure- 
ly she  can  never  err." 

"  ^Ty  dear  sir,"  replied  brother  Charles,  "  you  fall  into 
the  very  common  mistake  of  charging  upon  Nature  mat- 
ters with  which  she  has  not  had  the  smallest  connection, 
and  for  which  she  is  in  no  way  responsible.  Men  talk  of 
Nature  as  an  abstract  thing,  and  lose  sight  of  what  is 
natural  while  they  do  so.  Here  is  a  poor  lad  who  has 
never  felt  a  parent's  care,  who  has  scarcely  known  any- 
thing all  his  life  but  suffering  and  sorrow,  presented  to 
a  man  who  he  is  told  is  his  father,  and  whose  first  act  is 


164  DICKENS  AS  AN   EDUCATOR. 

to  signify  his  intention  of  putting  an  end  to  his  short  term 
of  happiness  by  consigning-  him  to  his  old  fate,  and  tak- 
ing him  from  the  only  friend  he  has  ever  had — which  is 
yourself.  If  Nature,  in  such  a  case,  put  into  that  lad's 
breast  but  one  secret  prompting  which  urged  him  toward 
his  father  and  away  from  you,  she  would  be  a  liar  and  an 
idiot." 

Nicholas  was  delighted  to  find  that  the  old  gentleman 
spoke  so  warmly,  and  in  the  hope  that  he  might  say  some- 
thing more  to  the  same  purpose,  made  no  reply. 

"  The  same  mistake  presents  itself  to  me,  in  one  shape 
or  other,  at  every  turn,"  said  brother  Charles.  "  Parents 
who  never  showed  their  love  complain  of  want  of  natural 
aifection  in  their  children;  children  who  never  showed, 
their  duty  complain  of  want  of  natural  feeling  in  their 
parents;  lawmakers  who  find  both  so  miserable  that  their 
affections  have  never  had  enough  of  life's  sun  to  develop 
them  are  loud  in  their  moralizings  over  parents  and  chil- 
dren too,  and  cry  that  the  very  ties  of  Nature  are  disre- 
garded. Natural  affections  and  instincts,  my  dear  sir,  are 
the  most  beautiful  of  the  Almighty's  works,  but,  like  other 
beautiful  works  of  his,  they  must  be  reared  and  fostered, 
or  it  is  as  natural  that  they  should  be  wholly  obscured, 
and  that  new  feelings  should  usurp  their  place,  as  it  is 
that  the  sweetest  productions  of  the  earth,  left  untended, 
should  be  choked  with  weeds  and  briers.  I  wish  we  could 
be  brought  to  consider  this,  and,  remembering  natural 
obligations  a  little  more  at  the  right  time,  talk  about  them 
a  little  less  at  the  wrong  one." 

It  was  chiefly  to  break  the  power  of  ignorant  and  cruel 
parenthood  over  suffering  childhood  that  Ralph  Nickleby 
was  painted  with  such  dark  and  repellent  characteristics, 
and  that  poor  Smike's  sufferings  were  detailed  with  such 
minuteness.  The  sympathy  of  the  world  was  aroused 
against  the  one  and  in  favour  of  the  other,  as  a  basis  for 
the  climax  of  thought  which  brother  Charles  expressed  so 
truly  and  so  forcefully. 

The  same  thought  was  driven  home  by  the  complaint 
of  Squeers  about  one  of  the  boys  in  Dotheboys  Hall. 

"  The  juniorest  Palmer  said  he  wished  he  was  in 
heaven.  I  really  don't  know,  I  do  not  know  what's  to  be 
done  with  that  young  fellow;  he's  always  a-w^ishing  some- 


SYMPATHY  WITH  CHILDHOOD.  165 

thing  horrid.  He  said  once  he  wished  he  was  a  donkey, 
because  then  he  wouldn't  have  a  father  as  didn't  love  him! 
Pretty  wicious  that  for  a  child  of  six!  " 

It  required  the  genius  of  Dickens  to  make  such  a  clear 
picture  of  an  unloving  father. 

Even  before  Nicholas  Nickleby  was  written  Dickens 
had  revealed  his  sympathetic  nature.    Oliver  Twist's  story  J  y[yC-' 
was  written  to  stir  the  hearts  of  his  readers  in  favour  of  |  '" 
unfortunate  children.     What  a  contrast  is  made  between   | 
the  hardening  effects  of  his  treatment  by  Bumble  and  the   ' 
"  gentleman  in  the  white  waistcoat,"  and  the  humanizing 
influence  of  Rose  Maylie's  tear  dropped  on  his  cheek. 

Surely  no  sensitive  little  boy  ever  submitted  to  more 
unsympathetic  treatment  than  poor  Oliver. 

When  little  Oliver  was  taken  before  "  the  gentlemen  " 
that  evening,  and  informed  that  he  was  to  go  that  night 
as  general  house  lad  to  a  coffin  maker's,  and  that  if  he 
complained  of  his  situation,  or  ever  came  back  to  the 
parish  again,  he  would  be  sent  to  sea,  there  to  be  drowned 
or  knocked  on  the  head,  as  the  case  might  be,  he  evinced 
so  little  emotion  that  they  by  common  consent  pronounced 
him  a  hardened  young  rascal,  and  ordered  Mr.  Bumble  to 
remove  him  forthwith. 

For  some  time  Mr.  Bumble  drew  Oliver  along,  without 
notice  or  remark;  for  the  beadle  carried  his  head  very 
erect,  as  a  beadle  always  should;  and,  it  being  a  windy 
day,  little  Oliver  was  completely  enshrouded  by  the  skirts 
of  Mr.  Bumble's  coat  as  they  blew  open  and  disclosed  to 
great  advantage  his  flapped  waistcoat  and  drab  plush 
knee  breeches.  As  they  drew  near  to  their  destination, 
however,  Mr.  Bumble  thought  it  expedient  to  look  down 
and  see  that  the  boy  was  in  good  order  for  inspection  by 
his  new  master:  which  he  accordingly  did,  with  a  fit  and 
becoming  air  of  gracious  patronage. 

"  Oliver!  "  said  Mr.  Bumble. 

"  Yes,  sir,"  replied  Oliver  in  a  low,  tremulous  voice. 

"  Pull  that  cap  off  your  eyes,  and  hold  up  your  head, 
sir." 

Although  Oliver  did  as  he  was  desired  at  once,  and 
passed  the  back  of  his  unoccupied  hand  briskly  across  his 
eyes,  he  left  a  tear  in  them  when  he  looked  up  at  his  con- 
ductor. As  Mr.  Bumble  gazed  sternly  upon  him,  it  rolled 
12 


166  DICKENS  AS  AN  EDUCATOR. 

down  his  cheek.  It  was  followed  by  another,  and  another. 
The  child  made  a  strong*  eifort,  but  it  was  an  unsuccess- 
ful one.  Withdrawing  his  other  hand  from  Mr.  Bumble's, 
he  covered  his  face  with  both,  and  wept  until  the  tears 
sprung  out  from  between  his  chin  and  bony  fingers. 

"  Well!  "  exclaimed  Mr.  Bumble,  stopping  short,  and 
darting  at  his  little  charge  a  look  of  intense  malignity. 
"  Well!  Of  all  the  ungratefullest  and  worst-disposed  boys 
as  ever  I  see,  Oliver,  you  are  the " 

"  No,  no,  sir,"  sobbed  Oliver,  clinging  to  the  hand 
which  held  the  well-known  cane;  "  no,  no,  sir;  I  wdll  be 
good  indeed;  indeed,  indeed  I  will,  sir!  I  am  a  very  little 
boy,  sir;  and  it  is  so — so " 

"  So  what?  "  inquired  Mr.  Bumble  in  amazement. 

"  So  lonely,  sir!  So  very  lonely!  "  cried  the  child. 
"  Everybody  hates  me.  Oh,  sir,  don't,  don't,  pray,  be  cross 
to  me!  "  The  child  beat  his  hand  upon  his  heart,  and 
looked  in  his  companion's  face  with  tears  of  real  agony. 

The  poor  boy  was  put  to  bed  by  Sowerberry  the  first 
night.    His  master  said,  as  they  climbed  the  stairs : 

"  Your  bed's  under  the  counter.  You  don't  mind 
sleeping  among  the  coffins,  I  suppose?  But  it  doesn't 
much  matter  w^hether  you  do  or  don't,  for  you  can't  sleep 
anywhere  else.     Come,  don't  keep  me  here  all  night!  " 

Dickens  pitied  children  for  the  terrors  with  which 
they  were  threatened,  as  Oliver  was  threatened  by  the 
board,  and  he  pitied  them  also  for  the  terrors  that  their 
imaginations  brought  to  -  them  at  night.  Sowerberry's 
lack  of  sympathy  was  as  great  as  Bumble's.  When  one 
of  his  own  children  showed  evidence  of  dread  of  retiring 
alone,  Dickens  sat  upstairs  with  his  family  in  the  evenings 
afterward.  He  did  not  tell  the  child  the  reason,  but  she 
was  saved  from  terror. 

Oliver  ran  away  from  Sowerberry's,  and  when  passing 
the  workhouse  he  peeped  between  the  bars  of  the  gate  into 
the  garden.  A  very  little  boy  was  there  who  came  to  the 
gate  to  say  "  Good-bye "  to  him.  He  had  been  one  of 
Oliver's  little  friends. 

"  Kiss  me,"  said  the  child,  climbing  up  the  low  gate 
and  flinging  his  little  arms  round  Oliver's  neck:  "  Good- 
bye, dear!  God  bless  you!  " 


SYMPATHY  WITH   CHILDHOOD.  167 

The  blessing  was  from  a  j^oung-  child's  lips,  but  it  was 
the  first  that  Oliver  had  ever  heard  invoked  upon  his  head; 
and  through  the  struggles  and  sufferings  and  troubles 
and  changes  of  his  after-life  he  never  once  forgot  it. 

When  Oliver  was  taken  to  commit  burglary  by  Bill 
Sykes,  and  was  wounded  and  brought  into  the  home  he 
was  assisting  to  rob,  the  good  lady  of  the  house  sent  for 
a  doctor.  The  doctor  dressed  the  arm,  and  when  the  boy 
fell  asleep  he  brought  Mrs.  Maylie  and  Rose  to  see  the 
criminal. 

Rose  sat  down  by  Oliver's  bedside  and  gathered  his 
hair  from  his  face. 

As  she  stooped  over  him  her  tears  fell  upon  his  fore- 
head. 

The  boy  stirred  and  smiled  in  his  sleep,  as  though 
these  marks  of  pity  and  compassion  had  awakened  some 
pleasant  dream  of  a  love  and  affection  he  had  never 
known.  Thus  a  strain  of  gentle  music,  or  the  rippling  of 
water  in  a  silent  place,  or  the  odour  of  a  flower,  or  the 
mention  of  a  familiar  word,  will  sometimes  call  up  sudden 
dim  remembrances  of  scenes  that  never  were  in  this  life; 
which  vanish  like  a  breath;  which  some  brief  memory  of 
a  happier  existence,  long  gone  by,  would  seem  to  have 
awakened;  which  no  voluntary  exertion  of  the  mind  can 
ever  recall. 

"What  can  this  mean?"  exclaimed  the  elder  lady. 
"  This  poor  child  can  never  have  been  the  pupil  of  rob- 
bers! " 

"  Vice,"  sighed  the  surgeon,  replacing  the  curtain, 
"takes  up  her  abode  in  many  temples;  and  who  can  say 
that  a  fair  outside  shall  not  enshrine  her?  " 

"  But  at  so  early  an  age!  "  urged  Rose. 

"  My  dear  young  lady,"  rejoined  the  surgeon,  mourn- 
fully shaking  his  head,  "  crime,  like  death,  is  not  confined 
to  the  old  and  withered  alone.  The  youngest  and  fairest 
are  too  often  its  chosen  victims." 

"  But  can  j'ou,  oh,  can  you  really  believe  that  this 
delicate  boy  has  been  the  voluntary  associate  of  the  worst 
outcasts  of  society?"  said  Rose. 

The  surgeon  shook  his  head  in  a  manner  which  inti- 
mated that  he  feared  it  was  very  possible,  and,  observing 
that  they  might  disturb  the  patient,  led  the  way  into  an 
adjoining  apartment. 


168  DICKENS  AS  AN  EDUCATOR. 

"  But  even  if  he  has  been  wicked,"  pursued  Rose, 
"  think  how  young  he  is;  think  that  he  may  never  have 
known  a  mother's  love,  or  the  comfort  of  a  home;  that 
ill  usage  and  blows,  or  the  want  of  bread,  may  have  driven 
him  to  herd  with  men  who  have  forced  him  to  guilt.  Aunt, 
dear  aunt,  for  mercy's  sake  think  of  this,  before  you  let 
them  drag  this  sick  child  to  a  prison,  which  in  any  case 
must  be  the  grave  of  all  his  chance  of  amendment.  Oh! 
as  you  love  me,  and  know  that  I  have  never  felt  the  want 
of  jjarents  in  your  goodness  and  affection,  but  that  I  might 
have  done  so,  and  might  have  been  equally  helpless  and 
unprotected  with  this  poor  child,  have  pity  upon  him  be- 
fore it  is  too  late!  " 

"  My  dear  love,"  said  the  elder  lady,  as  she  folded  the 
weeping  girl  to  her  bosom,  "  do  you  think  I  would  harm  a 
hair  of  his  head?  " 

"  Oh,  no,"  replied  Rose  eagerly. 

"  No,  surely,"  said  the  old  lady;  "  my  days  are  drawing 
to  their  close,  and  may  mercy  be  shown  to  me  as  I  show  it 
to  others.     What  can  I  do  to  save  him,  sir?  " 

Dickens  used  the  doctor  to  rebuke  the  large  class  of 
people  who  are  ever  ready  to  believe  the  worst  about  a  boy, 
and  who  are  always  looking  for  his  depravity  instead  of 
searching  for  the  divinity  in  him. 

Rose's  plea  for  kind  treatment  for  the  boy,  "  even  if 
he  has  been  wicked,"  was  a  new  doctrine  propounded  by 
Dickens.  The  worst  boys  at  home  or  in  school  need  most 
sympathy.  Mrs.  Maylie's  attitude  was  in  harmony  with 
Christ's  teaching,  but  quite  out  of  harmony  with  much 
that  was  called  Christian  practice  at  the  time  Dickens 
wrote  Oliver  Twist.  He  taught  the  doctrine  that  children 
were  turned  into  evil  ways  and  confirmed  in  them  through 
lack  of  sympathy.    Poor  Nancy  said  to  Rose  Maylie: 

"  Lady,"  cried  the  girl,  sinking  on  her  knees,  "  dear, 
sweet,  angel  lady,  you  are  the  first  that  ever  blessed  me 
with  such  words  as  these;  and  if  I  had  heard  them  years 
ago,  they  might  have  turned  me  from  a  life  of  sin  and 
sorrow;  but  it  is  too  late,  it  is  too  late!  " 

In  The  Old  Curiosity  Shop  Dickens  gave  a  beautiful 
picture  of  a  sympathetic  teacher  in  Mr.  Marton.  His  school 
was  not  well  lighted  or  properly  ventilated,  the  furniture 


SYMPATHY  WITH   CHILDHOOD.  16^ 

was  poor,  there  was  no  apparatus  except  a  dunce's  cap,  a 
cane,  and  a  ruler,  his  methods  were  old-fashioned,  but  he 
possessed  the  greatest  qualification  of  a  good  teacher,  deep 
sympathy  with  childhood.  This  was  shown  by  the  erasure 
of  the  blot  from  the  sick  boy's  writing ;  by  his  asking  Nell 
to  pray  for  the  boy ;  by  his  appreciation  of  the  boy's  love ; 
by  his  hoping  for  his  recovery  against  the  unfavourable 
reports;  by  his  favourable  interpretation  of  the  worst 
signs;  by  his  absent-mindedness  in  school;  by  his  giving 
the  boys  a  half  holiday  because  he  could  not  teach ;  by  his 
asking  them  to  go  away  quietly  so  as  not  to  disturb  the 
sick  scholar ;  by  his  saying  "  I'm  glad  they  didn't  mind 
me"  when  the  jolly  boys  went  shouting  away;  by  his 
telling  the  sick  boy  that  the  flowers  missed  him  and  were 
less  gay  on  account  of  his  absence;  by  his  hanging  the 
boy's  handkerchief  out  of  the  window  at  his  request,  as 
a  token  of  his  remembrance  of  the  boys  playing  on  the 
green;  by  the  loving  way  in  which  he  embraced  the  dy- 
ing boy,  and  held  his  cold  hand  in  his  after  he 
was  dead,  chafing  it,  as  if  he  could  bring  back  the 
life  into  it. 

Dombey  and  Son  is  full  of  appeals  for  the  tender  sym- 
pathy of  adulthood  for  childhood.  The  story  of  Florence 
Dombey  longing  for  the  one  look  of  tenderness,  the  one 
word  of  kindly  interest,  the  one  sympathetic  caress  from 
her  father,  which  never  came  to  her  during  her  childhood, 
is  one  of  the  most  touching  stories  ever  written.  It  was 
written  to  show  that  children  in  the  most  wealthy  homes 
need  sympathy  as  much  as  any  other  children,  and  that 
they  are  often  most  cruelly  neglected  by  their  parents. 

Floy  pleaded  to  be  allowed  to  lay  her  face  beside  her 
baby  brother's  because  "  she  thought  he  loved  her." 

The  love  that  is  given  back  in  exchange  for  loving 
interest  is  shown  by  Paul's  loving  gratitude  to  Floy  for 
her  interest  in  him,  which  led  her  to  spend  her  pocket 
money  in  books,  so  that  she  might  help  him  with  his 
studies  that  confused  him  so. 

And  high  was  her  reward,  when  one  Saturday  evening, 
as  little  Paul  was  sitting  down  as  usual  to  "  resume  his 
studies,"  she  sat  down  by  his  side  and  showed  him  all  that 


170  DICKENS  AS  AN  EDUCATOR. 

was  roug-h  made  smooth,  and  all  that  was  so  dark  made 
clear  and  plain,  before  him.  It  was  nothing  but  a  startled 
look  in  Paul's  wan  face — a  flush— a  smile — and  then  a  close 
embrace;  but  God  knows  how  her  heart  leaped  up  at  this 
rich  payment  for  her  trouble. 

"Oh,  Floy,"  cried  her  brother,  "how  I  love  you! 
How  I  love  you,  Floy!  " 

"  And  I  you,  dear!  " 

"  Oh,  I  am  sure,  sure  of  that,  Floy!  " 

He  said  no  more  about  it,  but  all  that  evening  sat  close 
by  her,  very  quiet;  and  in  the  night  he  called  out  from 
his  little  room  within  hers,  three  or  four  times,  that  he 
loved  her. 

There  is  no  higher  reward  than  that  of  the  sympathetic 
teacher  who  for  the  first  time  lets  light  into  a  dark  mind 
or  heart. 

The  lady  whom  Florence  overheard  talking  to  her 
little  orphaned  niece  about  her  father's  cruel  coldness 
toward  her  truly  said :  "  Not  an  orphan  in  the  wide  world 
can  be  so  deserted  as  the  child  who  is  an  outcast  from  a 
living  parent's  care." 

As  Dickens  was  one  of  the  first  to  urge  that  children 
had  rights,  so  he  was  one  of  the  first  to  show  that  there 
had  been  altogether  too  much  thought  about  the  duty  of 
children  to  parents,  and  too  little  about  the  duty  of  par- 
ents to  children.  Alice  Marwood,  one  of  the  characters  in 
Dombey  and  Son,  said  to  Harriet  Carker: 

"  You  brought  me  here  by  force  of  gentleness  and 
kindness,  and  made  me  human  by  woman's  looks  and 
words  and  angel's  deeds;  I  have  felt,  lying  here,  that  I 
should  like  you  to  know  this.  It  might  explain,  I  have 
thought,  something  that  used  to  help  to  harden  me.  I  had 
heard  so  much,  in  my  wrongdoing,  of  my  neglected  duty, 
that  I  took  up  with  the  belief  that  duty  had  not  been  done 
to  me,  and  that  as  the  seed  was  sown  the  harvest  grew." 

One  other  point  in  regard  to  sympathy  was  made  in 
Dombey  and  Son,  that  a  rough  exterior  may  cover  a  sym- 
pathetic heart. 

Long  may  it  remain  in  this  mixed  world  a  point  not 
easy  of  decision,  which  is  the  more  beautiful  evidence  of 
the    Almighty's   goodness:    the    delicate    fingers    that    are 


SYMPATHY  WITH  CHILDHOOD.  lYl 

formed  for  sensitiveness  and  sympathy  of  toucli,  and 
made  to  minister  to  pain  and  grief,  or  the  rough,  hard  Cap- 
tain Cuttle  hand,  that  the  heart  teaches,  guides,  and  soft- 
ens in  a  moment! 

In  the  model  school  of  Dickens  Doctor  Strong  is  said 
to  have  been  "  the  idol  of  the  whole  school " ;  and  David 
adds,  "  it  must  have  been  a  badly  composed  school  if  he 
had  been  anything  else,  for  he  was  the  kindest  of  men." 
Doctor  Strong's  wife,  who  had  been  his  pupil  in  early 
life,  said: 

"  When  I  was  very  young,  quite  a  little  child,  my  first 
associations  with  knowledge  of  any  kind  were  inseparable 
from  a  patient  friend  and  teacher — the  friend  of  my  dead 
father — who  was  alwaj's  dear  to  me.  I  can  remember 
nothing  that  I  know  without  remembering  him.  He 
stored  my  mind  with  its  first  treasures,  and  stamped  his 
character  upon  them  all.  They  never  could  have  been,  I 
think,  as  good  as  they  have  been  to  me,  if  I  had  taken  them 
from  any  other  hands." 

David  said,  when  telling  the  story  of  his  first  intro- 
duction to  Mr.  Murdstone : 

"  God  help  me,  I  might  have  been  improved  for  my 
whole  life,  I  might  have  been  made  another  creature,  per- 
haps, for  life,  by  a  kind  word  at  that  season.  A  word  of 
encouragement  and  explanation,  of  pity  for  my  childish 
ignorance,  of  welcome  home,  of  reassurance  to  me  that  it 
icas  home,  might  have  made  me  dutiful  to  him  in  my  heart 
henceforth,  instead  of  in  my  hypocritical  outside,  and 
might  have  made  me  respect  instead  of  hate  him." 

In  Bleak  House  Dickens  gave  in  Esther  the  most  per- 
fect type  of  human  sympathy,  and  by  his  pathetic  pictures 
of  poor  Jo,  Phil,  the  Jellyby  children,  the  Pardiggle  chil- 
dren, and  others,  stirred  a  great  wave  of  feeling,  which  led 
to  a  recognition  of  the  duty  of  adulthood  to  childhood, 
and  taught  the  value  of  sympathy  in  the  training  of  chil- 
dren. 

Esther  laid  down  a  new  law,  revealed  by  Froebel,  but 
given  to  the  English  world  by  Dickens  in  the  weighty  sen- 
tence, "  My  comprehension  is  quickened  when  my  affec- 
tion is." 


172  DICKENS  AS  AN   EDUCATOR. 

The  lack  of  sympathy  in  adulthood  is  revealed  for  the 
condemnation  of  his  readers  in  Mrs.  Rachael's  parting 
from  Esther. 

Mrs.  Rachael  was  too  good  to  feel  any  emotion  at  part- 
ing-, but  I  was  not  so  good,  and  wept  bitterly.  I  thought 
that  I  ought  to  have  known  her  better  after  so  many 
years,  and  ought  to  have  made  myself  enough  of  a  favour- 
ite with  her  to  make  her  sorry  then.  When  she  gave  me 
one  cold  parting  kiss  upon  my  forehead,  like  a  thaw  drop 
from  the  stone  porch — it  was  a  very  frosty  day — I  felt  so 
miserable  and  self-reproachful  that  I  clung  to  her  and 
told  her  it  was  my  fault,  I  knew,  that  she  could  say  good- 
bye so  easily. 

"  No,  Esther!  "  she  returned.  "  It  is  your  misfor- 
tune! " 

Poor  child,  she  cried  afterward  because  Mrs.  Rachael 
was  not  sorry  to  part  with  her. 

What  a  different  parting  she  had  when  leaving  the 
Miss  Donnys'  school,  where  for  six  years  she  had  been 
a  pupil,  and  for  part  of  the  time  a  teacher! 

She  received  a  letter  informing  her  that  she  was  to 
leave  Greenleaf. 

Oh,  never,  never,  never  shall  I  forget  the  emotion  this 
letter  caused  in  the  house!  It  was  so  tender  in  them  to 
<;are  so  much  for  me;  it  was  so  gracious  in  that  Father 
who  had  not  forgotten  me,  to  have  made  my  orphan  way 
so  smooth  and  easy,  and  to  have  inclined  so  many  youth- 
ful natures  toward  me,  that  I  could  hardly  bear  it.  Not 
that  I  would  have  had  them  less  sorry — I  am  afraid  not; 
but  the  pleasure  of  it,  and  the  pain  of  it,  and  the  pride 
and  joy  of  it,  and  the  humble  regret  of  it,  were  so  blended, 
that  my  heart  seemed  almost  breaking  while  it  was  full  of 
rapture. 

The  letter  gave  me  only  five  days'  notice  of  my  re- 
moval. When  every  minute  added  to  the  proofs  of  love 
and  kindness  that  were  given  me  in  those  five  days;  and 
when  at  last  the  morning  came,  and  when  they  took  me 
through  all  the  rooms  that  I  might  see  them  for  the  last 
time;  and  when  some  one  cried,  "  Esther,  dear,  say  good- 
bye to  me  here,  at  my  bedside,  where  you  first  spoke  so 
kindly  to  me!  "  and  when  others  asked  me  only  to  write 
their   names,   "  With  Esther's   love  ";    and  when  they  all 


SYMPATHY  WITH  CHILDHOOD.  173 

surrounded  me  with  their  parting  presents,  and  clung-  to 
me  weeping-,  and  cried,  "  What  shall  we  do  when  dear, 
dear  Esther's  gone!  "  and  when  I  tried  to  tell  them  how 
forbearing  and  how  good  they  had  all  been  to  me,  and 
how  I  blessed  and  thanked  them  every  one — what  a  heart 
I  had! 

And  when  the  two  Miss  Donnys  grieved  as  much  to 
part  with  me  as  the  least  among  them;  and  when  the 
maids  said,  "Bless  3'ou,  miss,  wherever  you  go!  "  and 
when  the  ugly  lame  old  gardener,  who  I  thought  had 
hardly  noticed  me  in  all  those  years,  came  panting  after 
the  coach  to  give  me  a  little  nosegay  of  geraniums,  and  told 
me  I  had  been  the  light  of  his  eyes — indeed  the  old  man 
said  so! — what  a  heart  I  had  then! 

This  was  intended  to  show  the  results  of  her  sympathy 
toward  the  pupils  and  everybody  connected  with  the 
school. 

Mrs.  Jellyby  is  an  immortal  picture  of  the  woman  who 
neglects  her  family  on  account  of  her  interest  in  Borrio- 
boola  Gha,  or  some  other  place  for  which  her  sympathy  is 
aroused.  Dickens  held  that  a  woman's  first  duty  is  to 
her  children.  The  wretched  Mr.  Jellyby,  almost  distracted 
by  the  poor  meals,  the  disorder  of  his  home,  and  the  wild 
condition  of  his  unfortunate  family,  said  to  his  daughter, 
"  iSTever  have  a  mission,  my  dear." 

Caddy  emphasized  the  thought  Dickens  had  given  in 
Dombey  and  Son  through  Alice  Marwood  when  she  said 
to  Esther: 

"  Oh,  don't  talk  of  duty  as  a  child.  Miss  Summerson; 
Where's  ma's  duty  as  a  parent?  All  made  over  to  the  pub- 
lic and  Africa,  I  suppose!  Then  let  the  public  and  Africa 
show  duty  as  a  child;  it's  much  more  their  affair  than 
mine.  You  are  shocked,  I  dare  say!  Very  well,  so  am  I 
shocked,  too;  so  we  are  both  shocked,  and  there's  an  end 
of  it!  " 

On  another  occasion,  overcome  by  emotion  at  the 
thought  of  her  mother's  neglect,  she  said  to  Esther: 

"  I  wish  I  was  dead,  I  Avish  \\'e  were  all  dead.  It 
would  be  a  great  deal  better  for  us." 

In  a  moment  afterward  she  kneeled  on  the  ground  at 


174  DICKENS  AS   AN   EDUCATOR. 

my  side,  hid  her  face  in  my  dress,  passionately  beg"ged  my 
pardon,  and  wept.  I  comforted  her,  and  would  have 
raised  her,  but  she  cried.  No,  no;  she  wanted  to  stay  there! 
"  You  used  to  teach  girls,"  she  said.  "  If  you  could 
only  have  taught  me,  I  could  have  learned  from  you!  I 
am  so  very  miserable,  and  like  you  so  much!  " 

How  the  Jellyby  children  loved  and  trusted  Esther! 
How  all  children  loved  and  trusted  her  for  her  true  sym- 
pathy ! 

Poor  Jo  swept  the  steps  at  the  graveyard  where  the 
friend  who  spoke  kindly  to  him  lay  buried,  and  he  always 
said  of  him,  "  He  wos  wery  good  to  me,  he  wos." 

And  Jo's  other  friends,  Mr.  Snagsby,  whose  sympathy 
drew  half  crowns  from  his  pocket,  and  Mr.  George,  and 
Doctor  Woodcourt,  and  Mr.  Jarndyce,  and  Esther,  showed 
their  kindly  sympathy  for  the  wretched  boy  so  fully  that 
the  reading  world  loved  them  as  real  friends,  and  this  lov- 
ing admiration  led  the  Christian  world  to  think  more 
clearly  in  regard  to  Christ's  teachings  about  the  little 
ones. 

No  heart  can  resist  the  plea  for  sympathy  for  such 
as  Jo  in  the  description  of  his  last  illness  and  death.  When 
the  end  was  very  near,  as  Allan  Woodcourt  was  watching 
the  heavy  breathing  of  the  sufferer. 

After  a  short  relapse  into  sleep  or  stupor  he  makes 
of  a  sudden  a  strong  effort  to  get  out  of  bed. 

"  Stay,  Jo!     What  now?  " 

"  It's  time  for  me  to  go  to  that  there  berryin'-ground, 
sir,"  he  returns  with  a  wild  look. 

"  Lie  down,  and  tell  me.     What  burying-ground,  Jo?  " 

"  Where  they  laid  him  as  wos  wery  good  to  me,  wery 
good  to  me  indeed,  he  wos.  It's  time  fur  me  to  go  down 
to  that  there  berryin'-ground,  sir,  and  ask  to  be  put  along 
with  him.  I  wants  to  go  there  and  be  berried.  He  used 
fur  to  say  to  me,  '  I  am  as  poor  as  you  to-daj^  Jo,'  he  ses. 
I  wants  to  tell  him  that  I  am  as  poor  as  him  now,  and 
have  come  there  to  be  laid  along  with  him." 

"  By  and  bye,  Jo.     By  and  bj^e." 

"  Ah!  P'raps  they  wouldn't  do  it  if  I  was  to  go  myself. 
But  will  you  promise  to  have  me  took  there,  sir,  and  laid 
along  with  him?  " 


SYMPATHY  WITH  CHILDHOOD.  I75 

"  I  will,  indeed." 

"  Thank'ee,  sir.  Thank'ee,  sir.  Thej-'ll  have  to  get  the 
key  of  the  gate  afore  they  can  take  me  in,  for  it's  alius 
locked.  And  there's  a  step  there,  as  I  used  for  to  clean 
with  my  broom.— It's  turned  wery  dark,  sir.  Is  there  any- 
light  a-comin'?  " 

"  It  is  coming  fast,  Jo." 

Fast.  The  cart  is  shaken  all  to  pieces,  and  the  rugged 
road  is  very  near  its  end. 

"  Jo,  m^'  poor  fellow!  " 

"  I  hear  you,  sir,  in  the  dark,  but  I'm  a-gropin' — 
a-gropin'— let  me  catch  hold  of  your  hand." 

"  Jo,  can  you  say  what  I  say?  " 

"  I'll  say  any  think  as  you  say,  sir,  for  I  knows  it's 
good." 

"  Our  Father." 

"  Our  Father! — yes,  that's  wery  good,  sir." 

"  Which  art  in  Heaven." 

"  Art  in  Heaven — is  the  light  a-comin',  sir?  " 

"  It  is  close  at  hand.     Hallowed  be  thy  Name!  " 

"  Hallowed  be— thy " 

The  light  is  come  upon  the  dark  benighted  way. 
Dead! 

Dead,  your  majesty.  Dead,  my  lords  and  gentlemen. 
Dead,  right  reverends  and  wrong  reverends  of  every  order. 
Dead,  men  and  women,  born  with  heavenly  compassion  in 
your  hearts.     And  dying  thus  around  us  every  day. 

One  of  the  best  of  Dickens's  illustrations  of  gratitude 
for  sympathy  is  the  case  of  Phil  Squod,  Mr.  George's  as- 
sistant in  the  shooting  gallery.  He  was  a  mere  child  in 
everything  but  years  of  hard  experiences,  but  he  was  de- 
voted heart  and  soul  to  Mr.  George  for  a  kindly  word 
of  hearty  sjTnpathy.  So  devoted  was  he  that  he  at- 
tached himself  to  Mr.  George  and  became  his  faithful 
servant,  and  found  his  truest  happiness  in  his  service 
of  love. 

Phil  recalled  the  story  to  Mr.  George. 

"  It  was  after  the  case-filling  blow-up  when  I  first  see 
you,  commander.     You  remember?  " 

"  I  remember,  Phil.  You  were  walking  along  in  the 
sun." 

"  Crawling,  guv'ner,  again  a  wall " 


176  DICKENS  AS  AN  EDUCATOR. 

"  True,  Phil — shouldering  your  way  on — 


"  In  a  nig-htcap!  "  exclaims  Phil,  excited. 

"  In  a  nightcap " 

"  And  hobbling  with  a  couple  of  sticks!  "  cries  Phil, 
still  more  excited. 

"  With  a  couple  of  sticks.     When " 

"  When  you  stops,  you  know,"  cries  Phil,  putting  down 
his  cup  and  saucer,  and  hastily  removing  his  plate  from 
his  knees,  "and  says  to  me,  'What,  comrade!  You  have 
been  in  the  wars!  '  I  didn't  say  much  to  you,  commander, 
then,  for  I  was  took  by  surprise  that  a  person  so  strong 
and  healthy  and  bold  as  you  was  should  stop  to  speak  to 
such  a  limping  bag  of  bones  as  I  was.  But  you  says  to 
me,  says  you,  delivering  it  out  of  your  chest  as  hearty  as 
possible,  so  that  it  w-as  like  a  glass  of  something  hot: 
*  What  accident  have  you  met  with?  You  have  been  badly 
hurt.  What's  amiss,  old  boy?  Cheer  up,  and  tell  us  about 
it!  '  Cheer  up!  I  was  cheered  already!  I  says  as  much 
to  you,  you  says  more  to  me,  I  says  more  to  you,  you  says 
more  to  me,  and  here  I  am,  commander!  Here  I  am,  com- 
mander! "  cries  Phil,  who  has  started  from  his  chair  and 
unaccountably  begun  to  sidle  away.  "  If  a  mark's  wanted, 
or  if  it  will  improve  the  business,  let  the  customers  take 
aim  at  me.  Thej^  can't  spoil  my  beauty.  Fni  all  right. 
Come  on!  If  they  want  a  man  to  box  at,  let  'em  box  at 
me.  Let  'em  knock  me  well  about  the  head.  /  don't  mind! 
if  they  want  a  light  weight,  to  be  throwed  for  practice, 
Cornwall,  Devonshire,  or  Lancashire,  let  'em  throw  me. 
They  won't  hurt  mc.  I  have  been  throwed  all  sorts  of 
styles  all  my  life!  " 

Pip  said  in  Great  Expectations : 

It  is  not  possible  to  know  how  far  the  influence  of  any 
amiable,  honest-hearted,  duty-doing  man  flies  out  into  the 
world;  but  it  is  verj'  possible  to  know  how  it  has  touched 
one's  self  in  going  by,  and  I  know  right  well  that  any 
good  that  intermixed  itself  with  my  apprenticeship  came 
of  plain  contented  Joe,  and  not  of  restless  aspiring  dis- 
contented me. 

Dear,  simple-hearted  Joe  Gargery!  When  every  one 
else  was  abusing  Pip  at  the  great  dinner  party,  he  showed 
his  sympathy  for  him  by  putting  some  more  gravy  on  his 
plate. 


SYMPATHY   WITH   CHILDHOOD.  177 

In  Our  Mutual  Friend  Lizzie  Hexam,  sympathizing 
with  her  father  so  much  that  she  would  not  learn  to  read 
because  he  was  bitterly  prejudiced  against  education,  but 
sympathizing  so  much  with  her  brother  Charley  that  she 
had  him  educated  secretly  so  that  he  might  become  a 
teacher,  is  an  illustration  of  nearly  perfect  sympathy. 

The  happiness  of  the  little  "  minders "  at  old  Betty 
Higden's  is  in  sharp  contrast  to  the  misery  of  the  boarders 
of  the  respectable  ( ?)  establishment  of  Mrs.  Pipchin.  In 
the  one  case  was  abject  poverty  and  loving  sympathy,  in 
the  other  plenty  and  cruel  selfishness.  When  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
Boffin  were  adopting  Johnnie  from  Betty  Higden's  care, 
the  brave  old  woman  said: 

"  If  I  could  have  kept  the  dear  child  without  the  dread 
that's  always  upon  me  of  his  coming  to  that  fate  I  have 
spoken  of,  I  could  never  have  parted  with  him,  even  to  you. 
For  I  love  him,  I  love  him,  I  love  him!  I  love  my  husband 
long  dead  and  gone,  in  him;  I  love  my  children  dead  and 
gone,  in  him;  I  love  my  young  and  hopeful  days  dead  and 
gone,  in  him.  I  couldn't  sell  that  love,  and  look  you  in 
your  bright  kind  face.     It's  a  free  gift." 

Betty  was  not  a  logically  reasoning  woman,  but  God 
is  good,  and  hearts  may  count  in  heaven  as  high  as  heads. 

Dickens  spoke  with  great  enthusiasm  in  his  American 
!N"otes  of  the  practical  sympathy  of  Doctor  Howe  with  all 
afflicted  children,  especially  with  blind  children,  closing  his 
sketch  of  the  wonderful  work  he  had  done  with  the  sen- 
tence :  "  There  are  not  many  persons,  I  hope  and  believe, 
who  after  reading  these  passages  can  ever  hear  that  name 
with  indifference."  He  noted  that  Laura  Bridgman  had  a 
special  desire  for  sympathy. 

She  is  fond  of  having  other  children  noticed  and  ca- 
ressed by  the  teachers,  and  those  whom  she  respects;  but 
this  must  not  be  carried  too  far,  or  she  becomes  jealous. 
She  wants  to  have  her  share,  which,  if  not  the  lion's,  is  the 
greater  part ;  and  if  she  does  not  get  it,  she  says,  "  My 
mother  will  love  me." 

Dickens's  types  of  sympathy  with  children  grew  more 
perfect  as  he  grew  older.    In  his  later  years  his  head  began 


178  DICKENS  AS  AN  EDUCATOR. 

to  catch  up  with  his  heart.  Major  Jackman,  Mrs.  Lir- 
riper,  and  Doctor  Marigold  are  among  his  most  wonder- 
fully sympathetic  characters. 

What  an  ideal  sending  away  to  school  Jemmy  Lirriper 
had! 

So  the  Major  being  gone  out  and  Jemmy  being  at 
home,  I  got  the  child  into  my  little  room  here  and  I 
stood  him  by  my  chair  and  I  took  his  mother's  own  curls 
in  my  hand  and  I  spoke  to  him  loving  and  serious.  And 
when  I  had  reminded  the  darling  how  that  he  was  now  in 
his  tenth  year,  and  when  I  had  said  to  him  about  his  get- 
ting on  in  life  pretty  much  what  I  had  said  to  the  Major,  I 
broke  to  him  how  that  we  must  have  this  same  parting, 
and  there  I  was  forced  to  stop,  for  there  I  saw  of  a  sud- 
den the  well-remembered  lip  with  its  tremble,  and  it  so 
brought  back  that  time!  But  with  the  spirit  that  was  in 
him  ne  controlled  it  soon,  and  he  says  gravely,  nodding 
through  his  tears:  "  I  understand,  Gran — I  knew  it  must 
be,  Gran — go  on.  Gran,  don't  be  afraid  of  me."  And  when 
I  had  said  all  that  ever  I  could  think  of,  he  turned  his 
bright  steady  face  to  mine,  and  he  says  just  a  little  broken 
here  and  there:  "  You  shall  see.  Gran,  that  I  can  be  a  man, 
and  that  I  can  do  anything  that  is  grateful  and  loving  to 
you;  and  if  I  don't  grow  up  to  be  what  you  would  like 
to  have  me — I  hope  it  will  be — because  I  shall  die."  And 
with  that  he  sat  down  by  me,  and  I  v^ent  on  to  tell  him  of 
the  school,  of  which  I  had  excellent  recommendations,  and 
where  it  was  and  how  many  scholars,  and  what  games 
they  played  as  I  had  heard,  and  w^hat  length  of  holidays, 
to  all  of  which  he  listened  bright  and  clear.  And  so  it 
came  that  at  last  he  says:  "  And  now,  dear  Gran,  let  me 
kneel  down  here  where  I  have  been  used  to  say  my  pray- 
ers, and  let  me  fold  my  face  for  just  a  minute  in  your  gown 
and  let  me  cry,  for  you  have  been  more  than  father — more 
than  mother — more  than  brothers,  sisters,  friends — to 
me!  "  And  so  he  did  cry,  and  I  too,  and  we  were  both 
much  the  better  for  it. 

Dear  old  Doctor  Marigold,  the  travelling  auctioneer, 
in  his  tender  sympathy  for  his  little  girl  when  her  mother 
was  so  cruel  to  her,  whispering  comforting  words  in  her 
ear  as  he  was  calling  for  bids  on  his  wares  while  she  was 
dying,  and  afterward  loving  the  deaf-mute  child  whom 


SYMPATHY   WITH  CHILDHOOD.  179 

he  adopted  in  memory  of  his  own  child  whom  he  had 
lost,  has  made  thousands  more  kindly  sympathetic  with 
children. 

In  the  novel  that  he  was  writing  when  he  died  Dickens 
makes  Canon  Crisparkle  say  to  Helena  Landless :  "  Y'ou 
have  the  wisdom  of  Love,  and  it  was  the  highest  wisdom 
ever  known  upon  this  earth,   remember." 

David  Copperfield  said,  "  I  hope  that  real  love  and 
truth  are  stronger  in  the  end  than  any  evil  or  misfortune 
in  the  world." 

The  effect  of  lack  of  true  sympathy  on  the  heart  that 
should  have  felt  and  shown  it  is  revealed  in  what  Sydney 
Carton  said  to  Mr.  Lorry :  "  If  you  could  say  with  truth 
to  your  own  solitary  heart  to-night,  '  I  have  secured  to 
myself  the  love  and  attachment,  the  gratitude  and  respect, 
of  no  human  creature;  I  have  won  myself  a  tender  place 
in  no  regard;  I  have  done  nothing  good  or  serviceable  to 
be  remembered  by,'  your  seventy-eight  years  would  be  sev- 
enty-eight curses ;  would  they  not  ?  " 

The  contrast  between  the  coldness  and  heartlessness  of 
his  parents  or  guardians  and  the  encouraging  sympathy 
of  his  teacher  is  one  of  the  strongest  features  in  the  story 
of  Barbox  Brothers  (Mugby  Junction). 

"  You  remember  me,  Y'oung  Jackson?  " 

"  What  do  I  remember  if  not  you?  You  are  my  first 
remembrance.  It  was  you  who  told  me  that  was  my  name. 
It  was  you  who  told  me  that  on  every  20th  of  December 
mj'  life  had  a  penitential  anniversary  in  it  called  a  birth- 
day. I  suppose  the  last  communication  was  truer  than 
the  first!  " 

"  "What  am  I  like,  Y^'oung  Jackson  ?  " 

"  \"ou  are  like  a  blight  all  through  the  year  to  me. 
You  hard-lined,  thin-lipped,  repressive,  changeless  woman 
with  a  wax  mask  on!  Y"ou  are  like  the  Devil  to  me — most 
of  all  when  you  teach  me  religious  things,  for  you  make 
me  abhor  them." 

"  Y^ou  remember  me,  Mr.  Young  Jackson?  "  In  an- 
other voice  from  another  quarter: 

"  Most  gratefully,  sir.  Y^'ou  are  the  ray  of  hope  and 
prospering  ambition  in  my  life.  When  I  attended  your 
course  I  believed  that  I  should  come  to  be  a  great  healer, 


180  DICKENS  AS  AN  EDUCATOR. 

and  I  felt  almost  happy — even  though  I  was  still  the  one 
boarder  in  the  house  with  that  horrible  mask,  and  ate  and 
drank  in  silence  and  constraint  with  the  mask  before  me 
every  day.  As  I  had  done  every,  every,  every  day  through 
my  school  time  and  from  my  earliest  recollection." 
"  What  am  I  like,  Mr.  Young  Jackson?  " 
"  You  are  like  a  Superior  Being  to  me.  You  are  like 
Nature  beginning  to  reveal  herself  to  me.  I  hear  you 
again  as  one  of  the  hushed  crowd  of  young  men  kindling 
under  the  power  of  your  presence  and  knowledge,  and  you 
bring  into  my  eyes  the  only  exultant  tears  that  ever  stood 
in  them." 

"  You  remember  Me,  Mr.  Young  Jackson?  "    In  a  grat- 
ing voice  from  quite  another  quarter: 

"  Too  well.  You  made  your  ghostly  appearance  in 
my  life  one  day,  and  announced  that  its  course  was  to 
be  suddenly  and  wholly  changed.  You  showed  me  which 
was  my  wearisome  seat  in  the  Galley  of  Barbox  Brothers. 
You  told  me  what  I  was  to  do,  and  what  to  be  paid;  you 
told  me  afterward,  at  intervals  of  years,  when  I  was  to 
sign  for  the  Firm,  when  I  became  a  partner,  when  I  be- 
came the  Firm.  I  know  no  more  of  it,  or  of  myself." 
"What  am  I  like,  Mr.  Young  Jackson?" 
"  You  are  like  my  father,  I  sometimes  think.  You  are 
hard  enough  and  cold  enough  so  to  have  brought  up  an 
acknowledged  son.  I  see  your  scanty  figure,  your  close 
brown  suit,  and  your  tight  brown  wig;  but  you,  too,  wear 
a  wax  mask  to  your  death.  You  never  by  a  chance  remove 
it;  it  never  by  a  chance  falls  off;  and  I  know  no  more  of 
you." 


CHAPTEK  X. 

CHILD    STUDY   AND   CHILD   NATURE. 

Dickens  was  a  profound  student  of  children,  and  he 
revealed  his  consciousness  of  the  need  of  a  general  study 
of  childhood  in  all  he  wrote  about  the  importance  of  a 
free  childhood,  individuality,  the  imagination,  coercion, 
cramming,  and  wrong  methods  of  training  children. 

He  criticised  the  blindness  of  those  who  saw  boys  as  a 
class  or  in  a  limited  number  of  classes,  distinguished  by  ex- 
ternal and  comparatively  unimportant  characteristics,  in 
Mr.  Grimwig,  "  who  never  saw  any  difference  in  boys,  and 
only  knew  two  sorts  of  boys,  mealy  boys  and  beef-faced 
boys." 

He  exposed  the  ignorance — the  wilful  ignorance — of 
vast  numbers  of  parents  and  teachers  who  indignantly  re- 
sent the  suggestion  that  they  need  to  study  children,  in 
Jane  ]Murdstone.  When  Jane  was  interfering  in  the  man- 
agement of  David,  and  with  her  brother  totally  misunder- 
standing him  and  misrepresenting  him,  his  timid  mother 
ventured  to  say: 

"  I  beg  your  pardon,  my  dear  Jane,  but  are  you  quite 
sure — I  am  certain  you'll  excuse  me,  my  dear  Jane — that 
you  quite  understand  Davy?  " 

"  I  should  be  somewhat  ashamed  of  myself,  Clara,"  re- 
turned Miss  Murdstone,  "  if  I  could  not  understand  the 
boy,  or  any  boy.  I  don't  profess  to  be  profound,  but  I  do 
lay  claim  to  common  sense." 

Many  Jane  Murdstones  still  claim  that  it  is  not  neces- 
sary to  study  so  common  a  thing  as  a  boy.     Yet  a  child 
is  the  most  wonderful  thing  in  the  world,  and,  whether  the 
Jane  Murdstones  in  the  schools  and  homes  like  it  or  not, 
13  181 


182  dicke:n^s  as  an  educator. 

the  wise  people  are  studying  the  child  with  a  view  to  find- 
ing out  what  he  should  be  guided  to  do  in  the  accom- 
plishment of  his  own  training. 

Kichard  Carstone  had  been  eight  years  at  school,  and 
he  was  a  miserable  failure  in  life,  although  a  man  of 
good  ability. 

"  It  had  never  been  anybody's  business  to  find  out  what 
his  natural  bent  was,  or  where  his  failings  lay,  or  to 
adapt  any  kind  of  knowledge  to  him."  Esther  wisely  said : 
"  I  did  doubt  whether  Richard  would  not  have  profited  by 
some  one  studying  him  a  little,  instead  of  his  studying 
Latin  verses  so  much." 

Dickens  studied  every  subject  about  which  he  wrote 
with  great  care  and  discrimination.  As  an  instance  of  this 
careful  study  it  may  be  stated  that  medical  authorities 
say  that  the  description  of  Smike's  sickness  and  death  is 
the  best  description  of  consumption  ever  written.  Dick- 
ens had  a  wonderful  imagination,  but  he  never  relied  on 
his  imagination  for  his  facts  or  his  philosophy.  It  is 
therefore  reasonable  to  believe  that  as  he  wrote  more 
about  children  than  any  other  man  or  woman,  he  was  the 
greatest  and  most  reverent  student  of  childhood  that  Eng- 
land has  produced. 

In  addition  to  the  revelations  of  his  conclusions  given 
in  the  evolution  of  his  child  characters,  and  in  the  many 
illustrations  of  good  and  of  bad  training,  he  continually 
makes  direct  statements  in  regard  to  child  nature  and  how 
to  deal  with  it  in  its  varied  manifestations. 

His  central  motive  was  expressed  by  the  old  gentle- 
man who  found  Little  Nell  astray  in  London :  "  I  love 
these  little  people;  and  it  is  not  a  slight  thing  when  they, 
who  are  so  fresh  from  God,  love  us." 

His  ideal  of  unperverted  child  nature  was  entirely 
different  from  that  which  had  been  taught  by  theology 
and  psychology.  He  believed  the  child  to  be  pure  and 
good,  and  that  even  when  heredity  was  bad,  its  baneful 
influences  need  not  blight  the  divinity  in  his  life, 
if  he  was  wisely  trained  and  had  a  free  life  of  self-ac- 
tivity, a  suitable  environment,  and  truly  sympathetic 
friends. 


CHILD  STUDY  AND   CHILD   NATURE.  183 

"  It  would  be  a  curious  speculation,"  said  I,  after  some 
restless  turns  across  and  across  the  room,  "  to  imagine  her 
in  her  future  life,  holding-  her  solitary  way  among  a  crowd 
of  wild,  grotesque  companions,  the  only  pure,  fresh,  youth- 
ful object  in  the  throng." 

To  keep  children  pure  and  fresh  was  the  chief  aim  of 
his  life  work.  He  had  no  respect  for  those  who  treated 
children  as  if  they  were  grown-up,  reasonable  beings ;  who 
judged  children  as  they  would  judge  adults,  and  therefore 
misjudged  them.  He  always  remembered  that  a  child  was 
a  little  stranger  in  a  new  world,  and  that  his  complex  na- 
ture had  to  adjust  itself  to  its  environment.  He  had  a 
perfect,  reverent,  considerate  sympathy  for  the  timid 
young  soul  venturing  to  look  out  upon  its  new  conditions. 
One  of  the  most  pathetic  things  in  the  world  to  him  was 
the  fact  that  children  are  nearly  universally  misunder- 
stood and  misinterpreted.  How  he  longed  to  tear  down 
the  barriers  of  formalism,  and  conventionality,  and  indif- 
ference, and  misconception  from  the  lives  of  parents  and 
teachers,  so  that  timid  children  might  be  true  to  their 
better  natures  in  their  presence. 

When  little  Florence  timidly  presented  herself,  Mr. 
Dombey  stopped  in  his  pacing  up  and  down  and  looked 
toward  her.  Had  he  looked  with  greater  interest  and 
with  a  father's  eye,  he  might  have  read  in  her  keen  glance 
the  impulses  and  fears  that  made  her  waver;  the  passion- 
ate desire  to  run  clinging  to  him,  crying,  as  she  hid  her 
face  in  his  embrace,  "  Oh,  father,  try  to  love  me!  there's 
no  one  else!  "  the  dread  of  a  repulse;  the  fear  of  being  too 
bold,  and  of  offending  him;  the  pitiable  need  in  which  she 
stood  of  some  assurance  and  encouragement;  and  how  her 
overcharged  young  heart  Avas  wandering  to  find  some 
natural  resting  place  for  its  sorrow  and  affection. 

But  he  saw  nothing  of  this.  He  saw  her  pause  irreso- 
lutely at  the  door  and  look  toward  him;  and  he  saw  no 
more. 

"  Come  in,"  he  said,  "  come  in;  what  is  the  child  afraid 
of?" 

She  came  in,  and  after  glancing  round  her  for  a  mo- 
ment with  an  uncertain  air,  stood  pressing  her  small 
hands  hard  together,  close  within  the  door. 


184  DICKENS  AS  AN  EDUCATOR. 

"  Come  here,  Florence,"  said  her  father  coldly.  "  Do 
you  know  who  I  am?  " 

"  Yes,   papa." 

"  Have  you  nothing  to  say  to  me?  " 

The  tears  that  stood  in  her  eyes  as  she  raised  them 
quickly  to  his  face  were  frozen  by  the  expression  it  wore. 
She  looked  down  again  and  put  out  her  trembling  hand. 

Mr.  Dombey  took  it  loosely  in  his  own,  and  stood  look- 
ing down  upon  her  for  a  moment,  as  if  he  knew  as  little 
as  the  child  what  to  say  or  do. 

"  There!  Be  a  good  girl,"  he  said,  patting  her  on  the 
head,  and  regarding  her,  as  it  were,  by  stealth  with  a  dis- 
turbed and  doubtful  look.     "  Go  to  Richards.     Go!  " 

His  little  daughter  hesitated  for  another  instant  as 
though  she  would  have  clung  about  him  still,  or  had  some 
lingering  hope  that  he  might  raise  her  in  his  arms  and 
kiss  her.  She  looked  up  in  his  face  once  more.  He 
thought  how  like  her  expression  was  then  to  what  it  had 
been  when  she  looked  round  at  the  doctor — that  night — 
and  instinctively  dropped  her  hand  and  turned  away. 

It  was  not  difficult  to  perceive  that  Florence  was  at  a 
great  disadvantage  in  her  father's  presence.  It  was  not 
only  a  constraint  upon  the  child's  mind,  but  even  upon 
the  natural  grace  and  freedom  of  her  actions. 

The  child,  in  her  grief  and  neglect,  was  so  gentle,  so 
quiet  and  uncomplaining,  was  possessed  of  so  much  affec- 
tion that  no  one  seemed  to  care  to  have,  and  so  much  sor- 
rowful intelligence  that  no  one  seeined  to  mind  or  think 
about  the  wounding  of,  that  Polly's  heart  was  sore  when 
she  was  left  alone  again. 

The  same  lesson  was  given  to  parents  and  teachers  in 
Murdstone's  treatment  of  Davy.  The  sensitive,  shy  boy 
was  regarded  as  sullen,  and  treated  "  like  a  dog  "  in  con- 
sequence. Oh,  what  bitterness  it  puts  into  a  child's  life 
to  be  misunderstood  by  its  dearest  friends !  If  there  were 
no  other  reason  for  the  co-operative  study  of  children  by 
parents  and  teachers,  it  would  be  a  sufficient  reason  that 
they  might  be  understood  and  appreciated.  Many  lives 
are  made  barren  and  wicked  by  the  failure  of  parents  and 
teachers  to  understand  them. 

It  is  so  easy  for  children  to  get  the  impression  that 
they  are  not  liked  by  adults.  When  Walter  started  life  in 
Mr.  Bombay's  great  warehouse,  his  uncle,  old  Solomon 


CHILD  STUD^    AND   CHILD   NATURE.  18& 

Gills,  with  whom  he  lived,  asked  him  on  his  return  from 
work  the  first  day: 

"  Has  Mr.  Dombey  been  there  to-day?  " 

"Oh,  yes!     In  and  out  all  day." 

"  He  didn't  take  any  notice  of  you,  I  suppose?  " 

"  Yes,  he  did.  He  walked  up  to  my  seat — I  wish  he 
wasn't  so  solemn  and  stiff,  uncle — and  said,  'Oh!  you  are 
the  son  of  Mr.  Gills,  the  ships'  instrument  maker.' 
'  Nephew,  sir,'  I  said.  '  I  said  nephew,  boy,'  said  he.  But 
I  could  take  my  oath  he  said  son,  uncle." 

"  You're  mistaken,  I  dare  say.     It's  no  matter." 

"  No,  it's  no  matter,  but  he  needn't  have  been  so  sharp, 
I  thought.  There  was  no  harm  in  it,  though  he  did  say 
son.  Then  he  told  me  that  you  had  spoken  to  him  about 
me,  and  that  he  had  found  me  employment  in  the  house 
accordingly,  and  that  I  was  expected  to  be  attentive  and 
punctual,  and  then  he  went  away.  I  thought  he  didn't 
seem  to  like  me  much." 

"  You  mean,  I  suppose,"  observed  the  instrument 
maker,  "  that  you  didn't  seem  to  like  him  much." 

"  Well,  uncle,"  returned  the  boy,  laughing,  "  perhaps 
so;  I  never  thought  of  that." 

This  short  selection  reveals  the  disrespect  for  child- 
hood which  leads  adulthood  to  flatly  contradict  what  a 
child  says,  whether  he  is  making  a  statement  of  fact  or  of 
opinion.  This  is  most  inconsiderate,  and  naturally  leads 
to  a  corresponding  disrespect  for  adulthood  on  the  part 
of  the  child.  The  selection  clearly  intimates  that  child- 
hood would  be  more  happy,  and  like  adulthood  better,  if 
adulthood  was  not  so  "  solemn  and  stiff."  Parents  and 
teachers  should  learn  from  Solomon's  philosophy  that 
a  child's  feelings  toward  an  adult  partly  determine  his 
impressions  regarding  the  attitude  of  adulthood  toward 
him. 

The  first  thing  necessary  in  training  a  child  to  be  his 
real,  best  self  is  to  win  his  affectionate  regard  and  con- 
fidence. One  has  to  be  very  true,  very  unconventional,, 
and  very  joyous,  to  do  this  fully. 

Dickens  pitied  the  child  because,  even  when  he  is  un- 
derstood, his  wishes,  plans,  and  decisions  are  not  treated 
with  respect.     This  is  a  gross  injustice  to  the  child's  na- 


186  DICKENS  AS  AN  EDUCATOR. 

ture.  As  Pip  so  truly  said :  "  It  may  be  only  small  injus- 
tice that  the  child  can  be  exposed  to;  but  the  child  is 
small,  and  its  world  is  small,  and  its  rocking  horse  stands 
3.S  many  hands  high,  according  to  scale,  as  a  big-boned 
Irish  hunter." 

Adulthood  needs  to  learn  no  lesson  more  than  that 
childhood  lives  a  life  of  its  own,  that  that  life  should 
not  be  tested  by  the  scales  and  tape  lines  of  adulthood, 
and  that  within  its  range  of  action  its  choice  should  be 
respected,  and  its  opinions  treated  with  reverent  consid- 
eration. 

Mrs.  Lirriper  said  that  when  she  used  to  read  the  Bible 
to  Mrs.  Edson,  when  that  lady  w^as  dying,  "  though  she 
took  to  all  I  read  to  her,  I  used  to  fancy  that  next  to 
what  was  taught  upon  the  Mount  she  took  most  of  all 
to  his  gentle  compassion  for  us  poor  women,  and  to  his 
young  life,  and  to  how  his  mother  was  proud  of  him,  and 
treasured  his  sayings  in  her  heart." 

The  divinity  in  any  child  will  grow  more  rapidly  if  his 
mother  "  treasures  his  sayings  in  her  heart."  We  need 
more  reverence  for  the  child. 

Dickens  tried  to  make  parents  regard  the  child  as  a 
sacred  thing,  which  should  always  be  the  richest  joy  of 
his  parents. 

Speaking  of  Mrs.  Darnay,  in  The  Tale  of  Two  Cities, 
he  says : 

The  time  passed,  and  her  little  Lucie  lay  on  her 
bosom.  Then,  among  the  advancing  echoes,  there  was  the 
tread  of  her  tiny  feet  and  the  sound  of  her  prattling 
words.  Let  greater  echoes  resound  as  they  would,  the 
young  mother  at  the  cradle  side  could  always  hear  those 
coming.  They  came,  and  the  shady  house  was  sunny  with 
a  child's  laugh,  and  the  divine  Friend  of  children,  to  whom 
in  her  trouble  she  had  confided  hers,  seemed  to  take  her 
child  in  his  arms,  as  he  took  the  child  of  old,  and  made  it 
a  sacred  joy  to  her. 

Dickens  had  profound  faith  in  children  whose  true 
development  had  not  been  arrested. 

Doctor  Strong  had  a  simple  faith  in  him  that  might 
have  touched  the  stone  hearts  of  the  very  urns  upon  the 


CHILD  STUDY  AND   CHILD  NATURE.  187 

wall.  .  .  .  He  appealed  in  everything  to  the  honour  and 
good  faith  of  the  bo3's,  and  relied  on  their  possession  of 
those  qualities  unless  they  proved  themselves  unworthy. 

Reliance  begets  reliance.  Faith  increases  the  qualities 
that  merit  faith. 

David  said  the  doctor's  reliance  on  the  boys  "  worked 
wonders."  No  wonder  it  worked  wonders.  We  can  help  a 
boy  to  grow  no  higher  than  our  faith  in  him  can  reach. 


ry 


CHAPTER   XI. 

BAD   TRAINING. 

In  addition  to  the  bad  training  found  in  so  many  of 
Lis  best-known  schools,  to  show  the  evils  of  coercion  in 
all  forms,  of  the  child  depravity  ideal,  of  the  loss  of  a 
free,  real,  rich  childhood,  of  the  dwarfing  of  individuality, 
of  the  deadening  of  the  imagination,  and  other  similar 
evils,  Dickens's  books,  from  Oliver  Twist  to  Edwin  Drood, 
contain  many  illustrations  of  utterly  wrong  methods  of 
training  children. 

The  mean  and  cruel  waybill  which  children  used  to  be 
treated  IBy^he  managers  of  institutions  is  described  in 
Oliver  Twist.  Dickens  said  that  when  Oliver  was  born  he 
€ried  lustily. 

If  he  could  have  known  that  he  was  an  orphan,  left 
to  the. tender  mercies  of  church  wardens  and  overseers, 
perhaps  he  would  have  cried  the  louder. 

"  Bow  to  the  board,"  said  Bumble,  when  he  was 
brought  before  that  august  body.  Oliver  brushed  away 
two  or  three  tears  that  were  lingering  in  his  eyes,  and 
seeing  no  board  but  the  table,  fortunately  bowed  to  that. 

"What's  your  name,  boy?"  said  the  gentleman  in  the 
high  chair. 

Oliver  was  frightened  at  the  sight  of  so  many  gentle- 
men, which  made  him  tremble;  and  the  beadle  gave  him 
another  tap  behind,  which  made  him  cry.  These  two  causes 
made  him  answer  in  a  very  low  and  hesitating  voice; 
whereupon  a  gentleman  in  a  white  waistcoat  said  he  was 
a  fool.  Which  was  a  capital  way  of  raising  his  spirits 
and  putting  him  quite  at  his  ease. 

"  Boy,"  said  the  gentleman  in  the  high  chair,  "  listen 
to  me.     You  know^  you're  an  orphan,  I  suppose?  " 

"  What's  that,  sir?  "  inquired  poor  Oliver. 

188 


BAD   TRAINING.  189 

"  The  boy  is  a  fool — I  thought  he  was,"  said  the  gentle- 
man in  the  white  waistcoat. 

"  Hush!  "  said  the  gentleman  who  had  spoken  first. 
"  You  know  you've  got  no  father  or  mother,  and  that  you 
were  brought  up  by  the  parish,  don't  you?  " 

"  Yes,  sir,"  replied  Oliver,  weeping  bitterly. 

"  What  are  you  crying  f or  ?  "  inquired  the  gentleman 
in  the  white  waistcoat.  And,  to  be  sure,  it  was  very  ex- 
traordinary.    What  could  the  boy  be  crying  for? 

"  I  hope  you  say  your  prayers  every  night,"  said  an- 
other gentleman  in  a  gruff  voice,  "  and  pray  for  the  peo- 
ple who  feed  and  take  care  of  you — like  a  Christian." 

"  Yes,  sir,"  stammered  the  boy.  The  gentleman  who 
spoke  last  was  unconsciously  right.  It  would  have  been 
very  like  a  Christian,  and  a  naarvellously  good  Christian, 
too,  if  Oliver  had  prayed  for  the  people  who  fed  and  took 
care  of  Jiim. 

The  dreadful  practices  of  first  making  children  self- 
conscious  and  apparently  dull  by  abuse  and  f  orm.alisni,  and 
then  calling  them  "  fools,"  or  "  stupid,"  or  "  dunces,"  are 
happily  not  so  common  now.  

In  Barnaby  Rudge  he  makes  Edward  Chester  complain 
to  his  father  about  the  way  he  had  been  educated. 

From  my  childhood  I  have  been  accustomed  to  lux- 
ury and  idleness,  and  have  been  bred  as  though,  my  for- 
tune were  large  and  my  expectations  almost  without  a 
limit.  The  idea  of  wealth  has  been  familiarized  to  me 
from  my  cradle.  I  have  been  taught  to  look  upon  those 
means  by  which  men  raise  themselves  to  riches  and  dis- 
tinction as  being  beyond  my  breeding  and  beneath  my 
care.  I  have  been,  as  the  phrase  is,  liberally  educated, 
and  am  fit  for  nothing. 

Dickens  was  in  terrible  earnest  to  kill  all  the  giants 
that  preyed  on  the  lifeblood  of  the  joy,  the  hope,  the  free- 
dom, the  selfhood,  and  the  imagination  of  childhood.  He 
waged  unceasing  warfare  against  the  system  which  he  de- 
scribed as 

The  excellent  and  thoughtful  old  system,  hallowed  by 
long  prescription,  which  has  usually  picked  out  from 
the  rest  of  mankind  the  most  dreary  and  uncomfortable 


190  DICKENS  AS  AN  EDUCATOR. 

people  that  could  possibly  be  laid  hold  of,  to  act  as  in- 
structors of  youth. 

The  selfish  and  mercenary  ideal  and  its  consequences 
are  dealt  with  in  the  training  of  Jonas  Chuzzlewit: 

The  education  of  Mr,  Jonas  had  been  conducted  from 
his  cradle  on  the  strictest  principles  of  the  main  cliance. 
The  verj^  first  word  he  learned  to  spell  was  "  gain,"  and 
the  second  one  (when  he  got  into  two  syllables)  "  money." 
But  for  two  results,  which  were  not  clearly  foreseen  per- 
haps by  his  watchful  parent  in  the  beginning,  his  train- 
ing may  be  said  to  have  been  unexceptionable.  One  of 
these  flaws  was,  that  having  been  long  taught  by  his 
father  to  overreach  everybod3%  he  had  imperceptibly  ac- 
quired a  love  of  overreaching  that  venerable  monitor 
himself.  The  other,  that  from  his  early  habits  of  consid- 
ering everything  as  a  question  of  property,  he  had  grad- 
ually come  to  look  with  impatience  on  his  x^arent  as  a 
certain  amount  of  personal  estate  which  had  no  right 
whatever  to  be  going  at  large,  but  ought  to  be  secured  in 
that  particular  description  of  iron  safe  which  is  common- 
ly called  a  coffin,  and  banked  in  the  grave. 

When  Charity  Pecksniff  reproved  Jonas  for  speaking 
irreverently  of  her  father,  he  said: 

"  Ecod,  you  may  say  what  you  like  of  my  father,  then, 
and  so  I  give  3'ou  leave,"  said  Jonas.  "  I  think  it's  liquid 
aggravation  that  circulates  throug'h  his  veins,  and  not 
regular  blood.  How^  old  should  you  think  my  father  was, 
cousin?  " 

"  Old,  no  doubt,"  replied  Miss  Charity;  "  but  a  fine  old 
gentleman." 

"A  fine  old  gentleman!  "  repeated  Jonas,  giving  the 
crown  of  his  hat  an  angry  knock.  "  Ah !  It's  time  he  was 
thinking  of  being  drawn  out  a  little  finer,  too.  Why,  he's 
eighty!  " 

"  Is  he,  indeed?  "  said  the  young  lady. 

"  And  ecod,"  cried  Jonas,  "  now  he's  gone  so  far  with- 
out giving  in,  I  don't  see  much  to  prevent  his  being  ninety; 
no,  nor  even  a  hundred.  Why,  a  man  with  any  feeling  ought 
to  be  ashamed  of  being  eighty,  let  alone  more.  Where's 
his  religion,  I  should  like  to  know,  when  he  goes  fiying  in 
the  face  of  the  Bible  like  that?     Threescore  and  ten's  the 


BAD  TRAINING.  191 

mark;  and  no  man  with  a  conscience,  and  a  proper  sense 
of  what's  expected  of  him,  has  any  business  to  live 
longer." 

"WTien  Jonas  was  particularly  brutal  in  the  treatment 
of  Chuff ey,  the  old  clerk,  his  father  seemed  to  enjoy  his 
son's  sharpness. 

It  was  strange  enough  that  Anthony  Chuzzlewit,  him- 
self so  old  a  man,  should  take  a  pleasure  in  these  gibings 
of  his  estimable  son  at  the  expense  of  the  poor  shadow  at 
their  table;  but  he  did,  unquestionably,  though  not  so 
much — to  do  him  justice — with  reference  to  their  ancient 
clerk,  as  in  exultation  at  the  sharpness  of  Jonas.  For  the 
same  reason,  that  young  man's  coarse  allusions,  even  to 
himself,  filled  him  with  a  stealthj^  glee,  causing  him  to 
rub  his  hands  and  chuckle  covertly,  as  if  he  said  in  his 
sleeve,  "  /  taught  him.  /  trained  him.  This  is  the  heir  of 
my  bringing  up.  Sly,  cunning,  and  covetous,  he'll  not 
squander  my  money.  I  worked  for  this;  I  hoped  for  this; 
it  has  been  the  great  end  and  aim  of  my  life." 

What  a  noble  end  and  aim  it  was  to  contemplate  in 
the  attainment,  truly!  But  there  be  some  who  manufac- 
ture idols  after  the  fashion  of  themselves,  and  fail  to  wor- 
ship them  when  they  are  made;  charging  their  deformity 
on  outraged  Nature.  Anthony  was  better  than  these  at 
any  rate. 

Exaggerated!  Slightly  exaggerated,  but  terribly  true 
to  Xature.  Centring  the  life  of  a  child  on  one  base  ma- 
terialistic aim  is  certain  to  make  a  degraded  if  not  a  dan- 
gerous character.  Every  noble  energy  that  should  have 
given  spiritual  strength  and  beauty  is  devoured  by  the 
material  monster  as  he  grows  in  the  heart.  Respect  for 
age,  even  for  parents,  is  lost  with  all  other  virtues,  and 
humanity  becomes  not  a  brotherhood  to  be  co-operated 
with  for  noble  purposes,  but  a  horde  to  be  entrapped  and 
cheated.  Jonas  delighted  his  father  with  his  rule  in  busi- 
ness :  "  Here's  the  rule  for  bargains — '  Do  other  men,  for 
they  would  do  you.'  That's  the  true  business  precept.  All 
others  are  counterfeits." 

Speaking  of  the  conversation  heard  by  IMartin  Chuz- 
zlewit at  the  boarding  house  in  'New  York,  he  said : 


192  DICKENS  AS  AN   EDUCATOR. 

It  was  rather  barren  of  interest,  to  say  the  truth;  and 
the  greater  part  of  it  may  be  summed  up  in  one  word: 
Dollars.  All  their  cares,  hopes,  joys,  alfections,  virtues, 
and  associations  seemed  to  be  melted  down  into  dollars. 
Whatever  the  chance  contributions  that  fell  into  the  slow 
cauldron  of  their  talk,  they  made  the  gruel  thick  and  slab 
with  dollars.  Men  were  weighed  by  their  dollars,  meas- 
ures gauged  by  their  dollars;  life  was  auctioneered,  aj)- 
praised,  put  up,  and  knocked  down  for  its  dollars.  The 
next  respectable  thing  to  dollars  was  any  venture  having 
their  attainment  for  its  end.  The  more  of  that  worthless 
ballast,  honour  and  fair  dealing,  which  any  man  cast  over- 
board from  the  ship  of  his  good  name  and  good  intent, 
the  more  ample  stowage  room  he  had  for  dollars.  Make 
commerce  one  huge  lie  and  mighty  theft.  Deface  the 
banner  of  the  nation  for  an  idle  rag;  pollute  it  star  by 
star;  and  cut  out  stripe  by  stripe  as  from  the  arm  of  a 
degraded  soldier.  Do  anything  for  dollars!  What  is  a 
flag  to  them! 

This  was  a  solemn  warning  against  the  training  of  a 
race  with  such  low  ideals. 

In  the  preface  to  Martin  Chuzzlewit  Dickens  shows 
that  he  deliberately  planned  Jonas  Chuzzlewit  as  a  psycho- 
logical study.    He  says: 

I  conceive  that  the  sordid  coarseness  and  brutality 
of  Jonas  would  be  unnatural,  if  there  had  been  nothing 
in  his  early  education,  and  in  the  precept  and  example 
always  before  him,  to  engender  and  develop  the  vices  that 
make  him  odious.  But,  so  born  and  so  bred — admired  for 
that  which  made  him  hateful,  and  justified  from  his  cradle 
in  cunning,  treachery,  and  avarice — I  claim  him  as  the 
legitimate  issue  of  the  father  upon  whom  those  vices  are 
seen  to  recoil.  And  I  submit  that  their  recoil  upon  that 
old  man,  in  his  unhonoured  age,  is  not  a  mere  piece  of 
poetical  justice,  but  is  the  extreme  exposition  of  a  direct 
truth. 

Mrs.  Pipchin  was  described  as  a  child  trainer  of  great 
respectability.  She  adopted  the  business  of  child  train- 
ing because  her  husband  lost  his  money.  Dickens  did 
great  service  to  the  world  by  ridiculing  the  outrageous 
practice  of  sending  children  to  be  trained  by  women  or 
taught   by   men   whose   only  qualification   for   the   most 


BAD   TRAINING.  193 

sacred  of  all  duties  was  the  fact  that  they  had  lost  their 
money,  and  were  therefore  likely  to  be  bad  tempered  and 
severe.  He  had  already  introduced  Squeers  to  the  world, 
but  he  knew  that  many  people  who  shuddered  at  Squeers 
would  send  their  own  children  to  such  as  Mrs.  Pipchin, 
because  she  was  respectable  and  poor.  He  wished  to  alarm 
such  people;  hence  Mrs.  Pipchin. 

Mrs.  Chick,  Mr.  Dombey's  sister,  and  Miss  Tox  called 
Mr.  Dombey's  attention  to  Mrs.  Pipchin's  establishment. 

"  Mrs.  Pipchin,  my  dear  Paul,"  returned  his  sister,  "  is 
an  elderly  lady — Miss  Tox  knows  her  whole  history — who 
has  for  some  time  devoted  all  the  energies  of  her  mind, 
with  the  greatest  success,  to  the  study  and  treatment  of 
infancy,  and  who  has  been  extremely  well  connected." 

This  celebrated  Mrs.  Pipchin  was  a  marvellous,  ill- 
favoured,  ill-conditioned  old  lady,  of  a  stooping  figure, 
with  a  mottled  face  like  bad  marble,  a  hook  nose,  and  a 
hard  gray  eye  that  looked  as  if  it  might  have  been  ham- 
mered at  on  an  anvil  without  sustaining  any  injury.  Forty 
years  at  least  had  elapsed  since  the  Peruvian  mines  had 
been  the  death  of  Mr.  Pipchin;  but  his  relict  still  wore 
black  bombazine,  of  such  a  lustreless,  deep,  dead,  sombre 
shade  that  gas  itself  couldn't  light  her  up  after  dark,  and 
her  presence  was  a  quencher  to  any  number  of  candles. 
She  was  generally  spoken  of  as  "  a  great  manager  "  of 
children;  and  the  secret  of  her  management  was,  to  give 
them  everything  that  they  didn't  like  and  nothing  that 
they  did — which  was  found  to  sweeten  their  dispositions 
very  much. 

When  Paul  and  Florence  were  taken  to  Mrs.  Pipchin's 
establishment,  Mrs.  Pipchin  gave  them  an  opportunity  to 
study  her  disciplinary  system  as  soon  as  Mrs.  Chick  and 
Miss  Tox  went  away.  "  Master  Bitherstone  was  divested 
of  his  collar  at  once,  which  he  had  worn  on  parade,"  and 
Miss  Pankey,  the  only  other  little  boarder  at  present,  was 
walked  off  to  the  castle  dungeon  (an  empty  apartment  at 
the  back,  devoted  to  correctional  purposes),  for  having 
sniffed  thrice  in  the  presence  of  visitors. 

At  one  o'clock  there  was  a  dinner,  chiefly  of  the 
farinaceous  and  vegetable  kind,  when  Miss  Pankey  (a 
mild  little  blue-eyed  morsel  of  a   child,   who   was   sham- 


194  DICKENS  AS   AN  EDUCATOR. 

pooed  every  morning,  and  seemed  in  danger  of  being 
rubbed  away  altogether)  was  led  in  from  captivity  by  the 
ogress  herself,  and  instructed  that  nobody  who  sniffed 
before  visitors  ever  went  to  heaven.  When  this  great 
truth  had  been  thoroughly  impressed  upon  her,  she  was 
regaled  with  rice;  and  subsequently  repeated  the  form  of 
grace  established  in  the  castle,  in  which  there  was  a  spe- 
cial clause  thanking  Mrs.  Pipchin  for  a  good  dinner.  Mrs. 
Pipchin's  niece,  Berinthia,  took  cold  pork.  Mrs.  Pipchin, 
whose  constitution  required  warm  nourishment,  made  a 
special  repast  of  mutton  chops,  which  were  brought  in  hot 
and  hot,  between  two  plates,  and  smelled  very  nice. 

As  it  rained  after  dinner  and  they  couldn't  go  out 
walking  on  the  beach,  and  Mrs.  Pipchin's  constitution  re- 
quired rest  after  chops,  they  went  away  with  Berry  (oth- 
erwise Berinthia)  to  the  dungeon — an  empty  room  looking 
out  upon  a  chalk  wall  and  a  water  butt,  and  made  ghastly 
by  a  ragged  fireplace  without  any  stove  in  it.  Enlivened 
by  company,  however,  this  was  the  best  place  after  all; 
for  Berry  played  with  them  there,  and  seemed  to  enjoy 
a  game  at  romps  as  much  as  they  did;  until  Mrs.  Pipchin 
knocking  angrily  at  the  wall,  like  the  Cock  Lane  Ghost 
revived,  they  left  off,  and  Berry  told  them  stories  in  a 
whisper  until  twilight. 

For  tea  there  was  plenty  of  milk  and  water,  and  bread 
and  butter,  with  a  little  black  teapot  for  Mrs.  Pipchin  and 
Berry,  and  buttered  toast  unlimited  for  Mrs.  Pipchin, 
which  was  brought  in,  hot  and  hot,  like  the  chops. 
Though  Mrs.  Pipchin  got  very  greasy  outside  over  this 
dish,  it  didn't  seem  to  lubricate  her  internally  at  all;  for 
she  was  as  fierce  as  ever,  and  the  hard  gray  eye  knew  no 
softening. 

After  tea.  Berry  brought  out  a  little  workbox,  with  the 
Royal  Pavilion  on  the  lid,  and  fell  to  working  busily; 
while  Mrs.  Pipchin,  having  put  on  her  spectacles  and 
opened  a  great  volume  bound  in  green  baize,  began  to 
nod.  And  whenever  Mrs.  Pipchin  caught  herself  falling 
forward  into  the  fire,  and  woke  up,  she  filliped  Master 
Bitherstone  on  the  nose  for  nodding  too. 

At  last  it  was  the  children's  bedtime,  and  after  prayers 
they  went  to  bed.  As  little  Miss  Pankey  was  afraid  of 
sleeping  alone  in  the  dark,  Mrs.  Pipchin  always  made  a 
point  of  driving  her  upstairs  herself,  like  a  sheep;  and  it 
was  cheerful  to  hear  Miss  Pankey  moaning  long  afterward, 


BAD   TRAINIXG.  195 

in  the  least  eligible  chamber,  and  Mrs.  Pipchin  now  and 
then  going  in  to  shake  her.  At  about  half-past  nine 
o'clock  the  odour  of  a  warm  sweetbread  (Mrs.  Pipchin's 
constitution  wouldn't  go  to  sleep  without  sweetbread) 
diversified  the  prevailing  fragrance  of  the  house,  which 
Mrs.  Wickam  said  was  "  a  smell  of  building,"  and  slum- 
ber fell  upon  the  castle  shortly  after. 

The  breakfast  next  morning  was  like  the  tea  over- 
night, except  that  Mrs.  Pipchin  took  her  roll  instead  of 
toast,  and  seemed  a  little  more  irate  when  it  was  over. 
Master  Bitherstone  read  aloud  to  the  rest  a  pedigree  from 
Genesis  (judiciously  selected  by  Mrs.  Pipchin),  getting 
over  the  names  with  the  ease  and  clearness  of  a  person 
tumbling  up  the  treadmill.  That  done.  Miss  Pankey  was 
borne  away  to  be  shampooed,  and  Master  Bitherstone  to 
have  something  else  done  to  him  with  salt  water,  from 
which  he  always  returned  very  blue  and  dejected.  Paul 
and  Florence  went  out  in  the  meantime  on  the  beach  with 
Wickam — who  was  constantly  in  tears — and  at  about  noon 
Mrs.  Pipchin  presided  over  some  Early  Readings.  It  being 
a  part  of  Mrs.  Pipchin's  system  not  to  encourage  a  child's 
mind  to  develop  and  expand  itself  like  a  young  flower, 
but  to  open  it  by  force  like  an  oyster,  the  moral  of  these 
lessons  was  usually  of  a  violent  and  stunning  character;  the 
hero — a  naughty  boy — seldom,  in  the  mildest  catastrophe, 
being  finished  off  by  anything  less  than  a  lion  or  a  bear. 

Sunday  evening  was  the  most  melancholy  evening  in 
the  week;  for  Mrs.  Pipchin  alwaj's  made  a  point  of  being 
particularly  cross  on  Sunday  nights.  Miss  Pankey  was 
generally  brought  back  from  an  aunt's  at  Rottingdean,  in 
deep  distress;  and  Master  Bitherstone,  whose  relatives 
were  all  in  India,  and  who  was  required  to  sit,  between  the 
services,  in  an  erect  position  with  his  head  against  the 
parlour  wall,  neither  moving  hand  nor  foot,  suffered  so 
acutely  in  his  young  spirits  that  he  once  asked  Florence, 
on  a  Sunday  night,  if  she  could  give  him  any  idea  of  the 
way  back  to  Bengal. 

But  it  was  generally  said  that  Mrs.  Pipchin  was  a 
woman  of  system  with  children;  and  no  doubt  she  was. 
Certainly  the  wild  ones  went  home  tame  enough,  after  so- 
journing for  a  few  months  beneath  her  hospitable  roof. 

At  this  exemplary  old  lady  Paul  would  sit  staring  in 
his  little  armchair  bj'  the  fire  for  any  length  of  time.  He 
never  seemed  to  know  what  weariness  was  when  he  was 


196  DICKENS  AS  AN   EDUCATOR. 

looking'  fixedly  at  Mrs.  Pipchin.  He  was  not  fond  of  her; 
he  was  not  afraid  of  her;  but  in  those  old,  old  moods  of 
his,  she  seemed  to  have  a  g-rotesque  attraction  for  him. 
There  he  would  sit,  looking"  at  her,  and  warming  his 
hands,  and  looking"  at  her,  until  he  sometimes  quite  con- 
founded Mrs.  Pipchin,  ogress  as  she  was.  Once  she  asked 
him,  when  they  were  alone,  what  he  was  thinking  about. 

"  You,"  said  Paul,  without  the  least  reserve. 

"  And  what  are  you  thinking  about  me  ?  "  asked  Mrs. 
Pipchin. 

"  I'm  thinking  how  old  you  must  be,"  said  Paul. 

"  You  mustn't  say  such  things  as  that,  young  gentle- 
man," returned  the  dame.     "  That'll  never  do." 

"  Why  not?  "  asked  Paul. 

"  Because  it's  not  polite,"  said  Mrs.  Pipchin  snappishly. 

"Not  polite?"  said  Paul. 

"  No." 

"  It's  not  polite,"  said  Paul  innocently,  "  to  eat  all  the 
mutton  chops  and  toast,  Wickam  says." 

"  Wickam,"  retorted  Mrs.  Pijichin,  colouring,  "  is  a 
wicked,  impudent,  bold-faced  hussy." 

"  What's  that?  "  inquired  Paul. 

"  Never  you  mind,  sir,"  retorted  Mrs.  Pipchin.  "  Re- 
member the  story  of  the  little  boy  that  was  gored  to  death 
by  a  mad  bull  for  asking  questions." 

"  If  the  bull  was  mad,"  said  Paul,  "  how  did  he  know 
that  the  boy  had  asked  questions?  Nobody  can  go  and 
whisper  secrets  to  a  mad  bull.     I  don't  believe  that  story." 

"  You  don't  believe  it,  sir?  "  repeated  Mrs.  Pipchin, 
amazed. 

"  No,"   said   Paul. 

"  Not  if  it  should  happen  to  have  been  a  tame  bull,  you 
little  infidel?  "  said  Mrs.  Pipchin. 

"  Berry's  very  fond  of  you,  ain't  she?  "  Paul  once  asked 
Mrs.  Pipchin  when  they  were  sitting  by  the  fire  with  the 
cat. 

"  Yes,"  said  Mrs.  Pipchin. 

"Why?"  asked  Paul. 

"  Why?  "  returned  the  disconcerted  old  lady.  "  How 
can  you  ask  such  things,  sir?  Why  are  you  fond  of  your 
sister  Florence?  " 

"  Because  she's  very  good,"  said  Paul.  "  There's  no- 
body like  Florence." 


BAD   TRAINING.  197 

"Well!  "  retorted  Mrs.  Pipchin  shortly,  "and  there's 
nobody  like  me,  I  suppose." 

"Ain't  there  really,  though?"  asked  Paul,  leaning  for- 
ward in  his  chair,  and  looking  at  her  very  hard. 

"  No,"  said  the  old  lady. 

"  I  am  glad  of  that,"  observed  Paul,  rubbing  his  hands 
thoughtfully.     "  That's  a  very  good  thing." 

To  which  every  one  would  say  "  Amen,"  if  they  could 
believe  Mrs.  Pipchin's  statement  to  be  actually  true. 

Mrs.  Pipchin  combined  in  her  "  system  "  many  of  the 
evils  of  child  training. 

She  was  not  good-looking,  and  those  who  train  children 
should  be  decidedly  good-looking.  They  need  not  be 
handsome;  they  ought  to  be  winsome.  Her  "  mottled  face 
like  bad  marble,  and  hard  grey  eye "  meant  danger  to 
childhood. 

She  was  gloomy  in  appearance,  in  manner,  and  in  dress, 
all  disqualifications  for  any  position  connected  with  child 
development. 

She  was  "  a  bitter  old  lady,"  and  children  should  be 
surrounded  with  an  atmosphere  of  sweetness  and  joyous- 
ness. 

Her  one  diabolical  rule  was  "  to  give  children  every- 
thing they  didn't  like  and  nothing  they  did  like."  This 
rule  is  the  logical  limit  of  the  doctrine  of  child  depravity. 

She  was  generally  spoken  of  as  a  "  great  manager," 
simply  because  she  compelled  children  to  do  her  bidding 
by  fear  of  punishment  in  the  "  dungeon,"  or  of  being  sent 
to  bed,  or  robbed  of  their  meals,  or  by  some  other  mean 
foiTQ  of  contemptible  coercion.  These  processes  were 
praised  as  excellent  till  Dickens  destroyed  their  respecta- 
bility. His  title  "  child-queller  "  is  admirable,  and  full  of 
philosophy.  Many  a  man  has  been  able  to  form  a  truer 
conception  regarding  child  freedom  through  the  influence 
of  the  word  "  child-queller,"  Every  teacher  should  ask 
himself  every  day,  "  Am  I  a  child-queller  ? "  It  will  be 
a  blessed  thing  for  the  children  when  there  shall  be  no 
more  Pipchinny  teachers. 

The  environment  of  the  ogress  was  not  attractive.  The 
gardens  grew  only  marigolds,  snails  were  on  the  doors,  and 
14 


198  DICKENS  AS  AN  EDUCATOR. 

bad  odours  in  the  house.  "  In  the  winter  time  the  air 
couldn't  be  got  out  of  the  castle,  and  in  the  summer  time 
it  couldn't  be  got  in."  Dickens  knew  that  the  environment 
of  children  has  a  direct  influence  on  their  characters,  and 
that  ventilation  is  essential  to  good  health.  These  lessons 
were  needed  fifty  years  ago. 

Mrs.  Pipchin  made  children  dishonest  by  putting  on 
collars  for  parade. 

"  The  farinaceous  and  vegetable "  diet,  the  "  regaled 
with  rice "  criticisms  show  that  Dickens  anticipated  by 
half  a  century  the  present  interest  in  the  study  of  nutri- 
tion as  one  of  the  most  important  educational  subjects. 

The  combination  of  coercion  and  religion  is  ridiculed 
in  the  theological  constraint  of  Mrs.  Pipchin,  when  she 
told  little  Miss  Pankey  "  that  nobody  who  sniffed  before 
visitors  ever  went  to  heaven." 

The  outrageous  selfishness  of  adulthood  was  exposed  by 
the  description  of  Mrs.  Pipchin's  anger  at  the  play  of  the 
children  in  the  back  room  when  it  was  raining  and  they 
could  not  go  out. 

The  injustice  of  the  "  child-queller "  was  shown  be- 
cause she  filliped  Master  Bitherstone  on  the  nose  for 
nodding  in  the  evening,  whenever  she  w^oke  up  from  her 
own  nodding. 

The  sacrilege  of  having  prayers  between  two  processes 
of  cruelty  is  worthy  of  note.  Religion  should  never  be 
associated  in  the  mind  of  a  child  with  injustice,  cruelty, 
or  any  meanness. 

The  dreadful  practice  of  driving  timid  children  to  sleep 
in  the  dark  was  another  of  Mrs.  Pipchin's  accomplish- 
ments. The  retiring  hour  of  childhood  should  be  made 
the  happiest  and  most  nerve  soothing  of  the  day.  Wise 
and  sympathetic  adulthood,  especially  motherhood,  can 
then  reach  the  central  nature  of  the  child  most  success- 
fully. 

The  formal  reading  of  a  meaningless  selection  from 
the  Bible  by  Bitherstone  tended  to  prevent  the  develop- 
ment of  a  true  interest  in  that  most  interesting  of  all 
books. 

The  Early  Readings,  with  the  bad  boy  in  the  story 


BAD  TRAINING.  199 

"  being  finished  off  generally  by  a  lion  or  a  bear,"  were  a 
fit  accompaniment  to  a  system  in  which  no  child's  mind 
was  encouraged  to  expand  like  a  flower  naturally,  but  to 
be  opened  by  force  like  an  oyster. 

Dickens  began  with  Mrs.  Pipchin  his  revelation  of  the 
great  blunder  of  checking  the  questions  of  children.  "  Re- 
member the  story  of  the  little  boy  that  was  gored  to  death 
by  a  mad  bull  for  asking  questions,"  she  said  to  Paul.  The 
same  evil  is  pointed  out  in  the  training  of  Pip  in  Great 
Expectations. 

Another  common  error  is  revealed  by  Mrs.  Pipchin, 
when  she  called  Paul  "  a  little  infidel,"  because  he  did  not 
accept  her  statement  about  the  mad  bull,  although  she 
knew  it  to  be  false  herself.  Even  when  children  doubt  the 
truth  they  should  not  be  called  "  infidels,"  unless,  indeed, 
it  is  desired  to  make  them  definitely  and  consciously 
sceptical. 

The  Puritan  Sabbath  was  a  part  of  Mrs.  Pipchin^s 
quelling  system  too. 

It  was  little  wonder,  therefore,  that  the  wild  children 
went  home  tame  enough  after  a  few  months  in  her  awful 
institution. 

Few  men  who  have  ever  lived  have  studied  the  child 
and  his  training  so  thoroughly  as  to  be  able  to  condense 
into  such  brief  space  so  many  of  the  evils  of  bad  training. 

Mrs.  Pipchin  and  Mr.  Squeers  have  been  made  to  do 
good  work  for  childhood. 

Biler  was  so  badly  treated  at  the  grinders'  school  that 
he  played  hookey,  but  that  was  not  the  worst  feature  of 
his  education.  They  did  not  feel  any  responsibility  for 
character  development  in  the  school  of  the  Charitable 
Grinders. 

But  they  never  taught  honour  at  the  grinders'  school, 
where  the  sj^stem  that  prevailed  was  particularly  strong 
in  the  engendering  of  hypocrisy;  insomuch  that  many  of 
the  friends  and  masters  of  past  grinders  said,  if  this  were 
what  came  of  education  for  the  common  people,  let  us 
have  none.  Some  more  rational  said,  Let  us  have  a  better 
one;  but  the  governing  powers  of  the  grinders'  company 
were  always  ready  for  them,  by  picking  out  a  few  boys 


200  DICKENS  AS  AN  EDUCATOR. 

who  had  turned  out  well  in  spite  of  the  system,  and  round- 
ly  asserting  that  they  could  have  only  turned  out  well 
because  of  it.  Which  settled  the  business  of  those  ob- 
jectors out  of  hand,  and  established  the  glory  of  the  grind- 
ers' institution. 

In  David  Copperfield,  Uriah  Heep,  utterly  detestable  in 
character,  is  the  natural  product  of  the  system  of  training 
under  which  both  he  and  his  father  were  brought  up. 
Uriah  said: 

"  Father  and  me  was  both  brought  up  at  a  foundation 
school  for  boys;  and  mother,  she  was  likewise  brought 
up  at  a  public,  sort  of  charitable,  establishment.  They 
taught  us  all  a  deal  of  umbleness — not  much  else  that  I 
know  of — from  morning  to  night.  We  was  to  be  umble  to 
this  person,  and  umble  to  that;  and  to  pull  off  our  caps 
here,  and  to  make  bows  there;  and  always  to  know  our 
place,  and  abase  ourselves  before  our  betters.  And  we 
had  such  a  lot  of  betters!  Father  got  the  monitor  medal 
by  being  umble.  So  did  I.  Father  got  made  a  sexton  by 
being  umble.  He  had  the  character,  among  the  gentle- 
folks, of  being  such  a  well-behaved  man  that  they  w^ere 
determined  to  bring  him  on.  '  Be  umble,  Uriah,'  says 
father,  '  and  you'll  get  on.  It  was  what  was  always  being 
dinned  into  you  and  me  at  school;  it's  what  goes  down 
best.  Be  umble,'  says  father,  '  and  you'll  do!  '  And  really 
it  ain't  done  bad!  " 

It  was  the  first  time  it  had  ever  occurred  to  me  that 
this  detestable  cant  of  false  humility  might  have  origi- 
nated out  of  the  Heep  family.  I  had  seen  the  harvest,  but 
had  never  thought  of  the  seed.  I  had  never  doubted  his 
meanness,  his  craft  and  malice;  but  I  fully  comprehended 
now,  for  the  first  time,  what  a  base,  unrelenting,  and  re- 
vengeful spirit  must  have  been  engendered  by  this  early, 
and  this  long,  suppression. 

David  himself  tells  how  he  suffered  after  the  death 
of  his  mother  from  the  cold  neglect  of  Mr.  Murdstone 
and  Jane  Murdstone.  No  child  can  be  so  destitute  as  the 
child  who  is  neglected  through  dislike. 

And  nov^^  I  fell  into  a  state  of  neglect,  which  I  can  not 
look  back  upon  without  compassion.  I  fell  at  once  into  a 
solitary  condition — apart  from   all   friendly  notice,   apart 


BAD   TRAINING.  201 

from  the  society  of  all  other  boys  of  my  own  age,  apart 
from  all  companionship  but  my  own  spiritless  thoughts — 
which  seems  to  cast  its  gloom  upon  this  paper  as  I  write. 

What  would  I  have  given  to  have  been  sent  to  the  hard- 
est school  that  ever  was  kept!  to  have  been  taught  some- 
thing, anyhow,  anywhere!  No  such  hope  dawned  upon 
me.  They  disliked  me,  and  they  sullenly,  sternly,  steadily 
overlooked  me.  I  think  Mr.  Murdstone's  means  were 
straitened  at  about  this  time;  but  it  is  little  to  the  pur- 
pose. He  could  not  bear  me;  and  in  putting  me  from  him 
he  tried,  as  I  believe,  to  put  away  the  notion  that  I  had 
any  claim  upon  him — and  succeeded. 

I  was  not  actively  ill  used.  I  was  not  beaten  or 
starved;  but  the  wrong  that  was  done  to  me  had  no  inter- 
vals of  relenting,  and  was  done  in  a  systematic,  passionless 
manner.  Day  after  day,  week  after  week,  month  after 
month,  I  was  coldly  neglected.  I  wonder  sometimes,  when 
I  think  of  it,  what  they  would  have  done  if  I  had  been 
taken  with  an  illness — whether  I  should  have  lain  down  in 
my  lonely  room  and  languished  through  it  in  my  usual 
solitary  way,  or  whether  anybody  would  have  helped  me 
out. 

But  the  greatest  lesson  in  wrong  training  given  in 
David  Copperfield  is  the  character  development  of  Steer-     , 
forth.     He  was  ruined  by  the   misdirected   love   of  his   / 
mother,  and  his  life  is  a  fine  psychological  study. 

He  was  a  boy  of  unusually  good  ability  and  great  at- 
tractiveness. He  possessed  by  nature  every  element  of 
power  and  grace  required  to  make  him  a  strong,  true,  and 
very  successful  man;  but  the  love  of  his  mother  degener- 
ated to  pride  and  admiration,  indulgence  was  substituted 
for  guidance,  and  the  strong  woman  became  weak  at  the 
vital  point  of  training  her  boy.  She  allowed  him  to  be- 
come selfish  and  vain  by  yielding  to  his  caprices.  She 
thought  she  was  making  his  character  strong  by  allowing 
no  restraint  to  be  put  upon  it.  She  failed  to  distinguish 
between  license  and  liberty.  She  had  conceived  the  ideal 
of  the  need  of  freedom,  but  she  knew  naught  of  the  true 
harmony  between  control  and  spontaneity.  She  allowed 
the  spontaneity,  and  gloried  in  his  resistance  to  control. 
She  was  blind  to  the  balancing  element  in  "  the  perfect 
law  of  liberty."     She  made  her  boy  a  powerful  engine 


202  DICKENS  AS  AN  EDUCATOR. 

without  a  governor  valve.  So  his  selfhood  became  self- 
ishness, and  his  character  was  wrecked.  Among  other 
immoral  opinions  that  he  gained  from  his  mother's  train- 
ing was  the  idea  that  he  belonged  to  a  select  class  su- 
perior to  common  humanity.  How  Dickens  hated  this 
thought !    Kosa  Dartle  asked  Steerf orth  about 

"  That  sort  of  peoijle — are  they  really  animals  and 
clods,  and  beings  of  another  order?  I  want  to  know  so 
much." 

"  Why,  there's  a  pretty  wide  separation  between  them 
and  us,"  said  Steerforth,  with  indifference.  "  They  are  not 
to  be  expected  to  be  as  sensitive  as  we  are.  Their  delicacy 
is  not  to  be  shocked  or  hurt  very  easily.  They  are  won- 
derfully virtuous,  I  dare  say — some  people  contend  for 
that,  at  least,  and  I  am  sure  I  don't  want  to  contradict 
them;  but  they  have  not  very  fine  natures,  and  they  may  be 
thankful  that,  like  their  coarse,  rough  skins,  they  are  not 
easily  wounded." 

He  was  trained  to  despise  work,  which  is  a  good  start 
toward  the  utter  loss  of  character.  A  boy  who  despises  his 
fellow-beings  whom  he  assumes  to  rank  below  him,  and 
who  also  despises  work,  instead  of  recognising  the  duty  of 
every  man  to  be  a  producer  or  a  distributor  of  power,  may 
easily  fall  into  moral  degeneracy. 

"Help  yourself,  Copperfield!  "  said  Steerforth.  "We'll 
drink  the  daisies  of  the  field,  in  compliment  to  you;  and 
the  lilies  of  the  valley  that  toil  not,  neither  do  they  spin, 
in  compliment  to  me — the  more  shame  for  me!  " 

His  character  lacked  seriousness.  He  had  the  fatal 
levity  that  led  him  to  discuss  the  most  sacred  subjects  in 
a  flippant  manner. 

His  mother  knew  that  Creakle's  school  was  not  a 
proper  place  for  him,  but  she  wished  to  make  him  con- 
scious of  his  superiority  even  over  his  teacher,  and  she 
knew  that  Creakle,  tyrannical  bully  though  he  was,  would 
yield  to  Steerforth,  because  his  mother  was  wealthy. 

"  It  was  not  a  fit  school  generally  for  my  son,"  said 
she;  "  far  from  it;  but  there  were  particular  circumstances 
to  be  considered   at   the   time,  of  more   importance   even 


BAD   TRAINING.  2U3 

than  that  selection.  My  son's  high  spirit  made  it  desir- 
able that  he  should  be  placed  with  some  man  who  felt 
its  superiority,  and  would  be  content  to  bow  himself  be- 
fore it;  and  we  found  such  a  man  there." 

What  a  perversion  of  the  ideal  of  freedom,  in  the  devel- 
opment of  character,  to  suppose  that  it  could  only  reach 
perfection  by  a  consciousness  of  superiority;  by  having 
some  one  who  should  control  him  bow  down  before  himl 
Xo  man  in  the  world  is  truly  free  who  has  a  desire  to 
dominate  some  one  else — another  man,  a  woman,  or  a 
child.  Yet  Mrs.  Steerforth  sacrificed  her  son's  education 
in  order  that  his  manly  spirit  might  be  cultivated  by  the 
subordination  of  the  man  who  should  have  governed  him. 
She  showed  better  judgment  in  deciding  that  a  coercive 
tyrant  like  Creakle  would  make  a  subservient  sycophant. 

"  My  son's  great  capacity  was  tempted  on  there  by  a 
feeling  of  voluntary  emulation  and  conscious  pride,"  the 
fond  lady  went  on  to  saj'.  "  He  would  have  risen  against 
all  constraint;  but  he  found  himself  the  monarch  of  the 
place,  and  he  haughtily  determined  to  be  worthy  of  his 
station.     It  was  like  himself." 

As  Steerforth  began  consciously  to  feel  his  better  na- 
ture surrendering  to  his  sensuality,  he  experienced  the 
pangs  that  all  strong  natures  feel  at  the  loss  of  moral 
power,  and  one  time  when  he  and  David  were  visiting  Mr. 
Peggotty  at  Yarmouth  he  seemed  to  be  moody  and  dis- 
posed to  sadness.  He  said  suddenly  to  David  when  they 
were  alone  one  day: 

"  David,  I  wish  to  God  I  had  had  a  judicious  father 
these  last  twenty  years!  " 

"  My  dear  Steerforth,  what  is  the  matter?  " 

"I  wish  with  all  my  soul  I  had  been  better  guided!  "" 
he  exclaimed.  *'  I  wish  with  all  my  soul  I  could  guide 
myself  better!  " 

There  was  a  passionate  dejection  in  his  manner  that 
quite  amazed  me.  He  was  more  unlike  himself  than  I 
could  have  supposed  possible. 

"  It  would  be  better  to  be  this  poor  Peggotty,  or  his 
lout  of  a  nephew,"  he  said,  getting  up  and  leaning  mood- 
ily against  the  chimney  piece,  with  his  face  toward   the 


204  DICKENS  AS  AN  EDUCATOR. 

fire,  "  than  to  be  myself,  twenty  times  richer  and  twenty 
times  wiser  and  be  the  torment  to  myself  that  I  have  been, 
in  this  Devil's  bark  of  a  boat,  within  the  last  half  hour!  " 

He  had  already  begun  to  poison  the  fountains  of  little 
Emily's  purity. 

When  Steerforth,  after  running  away  with  Emily  and 
deserting  her,  was  drowned  and  brought  home,  Rosa 
Dartle,  who  had  loved  him,  charged  his  mother  with  his 
ruin.  She  had  a  scar  on  her  lip,  made  by  a  hammer 
thrown  by  Steerforth  when  he  was  a  boy. 

"  Do  you  remember  when  he  did  this?  "  she  proceed- 
ed. "  Do  you  remember  when  in  his  inheritance  of  your 
nature,  and  in  your  pampering  of  his  pride  and  passion, 
he  did  this,  and  disfigured  me  for  life?  Look  at  me, 
marked  until  I  die  with  his  high  displeasure,  and  moan 
and  groan  for  what  you  made  him!  " 

"  Miss  Dartle,"  I  entreated  her,  "  for  Heaven's 
sake " 

"  I  will  speak,"  she  said,  turning  on  me  with  her  light- 
ning eyes.  "  Be  silent  you!  Look  at  me,  I  say,  proud 
mother  of  a  proud  false  son!  ]\roan  for  your  nurture  of 
him,  moan  for  your  corruption  of  him,  moan  for  your  loss 
of  him,  moan  for  mine!  " 

She  clinched  her  hand,  and  trembled  through  her  spare, 
worn  figure,  as  if  her  passion  were  killing  her  by  inches. 

"You  resent  his  self-will!  "  she  exclaimed.  "You  in- 
jured by  his  haughty  temper!  You,  who  opposed  to  both, 
when  your  hair  was  gray,  the  qualities  which  made  both 
when  you  gave  him  birth!  You,  who  from  his  cradle 
reared  him  to  be  what  he  was,  and  stunted  what  he  should 
have  been!  Are  you  rewarded,  noio,  for  your  years  of 
trouble?  " 

"  Miss  Dartle,"  said  I,  "  if  you  can  be  so  obdurate  as 
not  to  feel  for  this  afflicted  mother " 

"  Who  feels  for  me?  "  she  sharply  retorted.  "  She  has 
sown  this.  Let  her  moan  for  the  harvest  that  she  reaps  to- 
day! " 

To  show  that  the  seed  for  the  harvest  had  been  sown 
by  his  mother  was  Dickens's  aim  in  the  delineation  of  his 
character.  Yet  she  loved  him  as  a  part  of  her  own  life. 
She  said  to  Mr.  Peggotty,  when  he  came  to  plead  with  her 
for  Emily: 


BAD  TRAINING.  205 

"  My  son,  who  has  been  the  object  of  my  life,  to  whom 
its  every  thought  has  been  devoted,  whom  I  have  grati- 
fied from  a  child  in  every  wish,  from  whom  I  have  had  no 
separate  existence  since  his  birth." 

There  was  a  double  sadness  in  David's  soliloquy  about 
Steerf orth,  who  had  been  his  friend : 

In  the  keen  distress  of  the  discover^'  of  his  unworthi- 
ness,  I  thought  more  of  all  that  was  brilliant  in  him,  I 
softened  more  toward  all  that  was  good  in  him,  I  did 
more  justice  to  the  qualities  that  might  have  made  him  a 
man  of  a  noble  nature  and  a  great  name,  than  ever  I  had 
done  in  the  height  of  my  devotion  to  him. 

In  Bleak  House  a  great  deal  of  attention  is  paid  to 
child  training. 

Esther's  sadness  because  of  her  neglected  birthday 
touches  a  tender  chord. 

It  was  my  birthday.  There  were  holidays  at  school  on 
other  birthdays;  none  on  mine.  There  were  rejoicings  at 
home  on  other  birthdays,  as  I  knew  from  what  I  heard 
the  girls  relate  to  one  another;  there  were  none  on  mine. 
My  birthday  was  the  most  melancholy  day  at  home  in  the 
whole  3'ear. 

There  is  more  than  mere  sentiment  in  birthday  cele- 
brations both  at  home  and  in  school.  It  develops  a  pleas- 
ant consciousness  of  individuality  and  conununity — two 
of  the  greatest  educational  ideals. 

The  cruelty  of  telling  children  of  any  supposed  blight 
of  heredity  or  of  any  other  shadow  that  arrogant  con- 
ventionality dares  to  throw  over  them,  is  criticised  in  the 
hard,  gloomy  way  in  which  Esther's  godmother  referred 
to  her  mother. 

Even  worse  than  this  in  the  refinement  of  its  cruelty 
was  her  parting  injunction.  It  is  a  shameful  thing  to 
make  a  child  believe  that  she  is  different  from  other  chil- 
dren in  any  sense  of  either  badness  or  goodness. 

"  Submission,  self-denial,  diligent  work,  are  the  prepa- 
rations for  a  life  begun  with  such  a  shadow  on  it.  You  are 
diiierent  from  other  children,  Esther,  because  you  were 
not  born,  like  them,  in  common  sinfulness  and  wrath. 
You  are  set  apart." 


206  DICKENS  AS  AN  EDUCATOR. 

I  went  up  to  my  room  and  crept  to  bed,  and  laid  my 
doll's  cheek  against  mine  wet  with  tears,  and  holding 
that  solitary  friend  upon  my  bosom  cried  myself  to  sleep. 
Imperfect  as  my  understanding  of  my  sorrow  was,  I  knew 
that  I  had  brought  no  joy,  at  any  time,  to  anybody's  heart, 
and  that  I  was  to  no  one  upon  earth  what  Dolh'  ^^  as  to  me. 

Dickens  evidently  meant  to  reveal  more  than  her  god- 
mother's cruelty  in  her  closing  moralizings.  She  made  the 
mistake  of  using  self-denial  and  diligent  work  as  curses 
instead  of  blessings.  They  were  for  the  time  none  the 
less  curses  to  the  child,  however. 

The  gross  negligence  of  parents  in  regard  to  the  sa- 
credness  of  the  children's  retiring  hour  is  exposed  in  the 
management  of  the  Jellyby  children.  Indeed,  Mrs.  Jellyby 
may  be  regarded  as  several  volumes  of  treatises  on  how  not 
to  train  children.  Caddy  expressed  her  views  of  the 
training  they  received  by  saying :  "  I  wish  I  was  dead.  I 
wish  we  were  all  dead.  It  would  be  a  great  deal  better  for 
us."  She  wisely  added :  "  Oh,  don't  talk  of  duty  as  a  child ! 
where's  ma's  duty  as  a  parent  ? "     Esther  said  wisely : 

It  struck  me  that  if  Mrs.  Jell^'bj^  had  discharged  her 
own  natural  duties  and  obligations  before  she  swept  the 
horizon  with  a  telescope  in  search  of  others,  she  would 
have  taken  the  best  precautions  against  becoming  absurd; 
but  I  need  scarcely  observe  that  I  kept  this  to  mysell. 

Esther  describes  the  process  of  putting  the  children  to 
bed  one  evening  she  was  visiting  at  the  Jellyby  home : 

Mrs.  Jellyby  stopped  for  a  moment  her  conversation 
'with  Mr.  Quale,  on  the  Brotherhood  of  Humanity,  long 
enough  to  order  the  children  to  bed. 

As  Peepy  cried  for  me  to  take  him  to  bed,  I  carried 
him  upstairs,  where  the  young  woman  with  the  flannel 
bandage  charged  into  the  midst  of  the  little  family  like  a 
dragon,  and  overturned  them  into  cribs. 

Peepy  was  the  unfortunate  child  who  had  fallen  down- 
stairs, who  now  interrupted  the  correspondence  by  pre- 
senting himself  with  a  slip  of  plaster  on  his  forehead, 
to  exhibit  his  wounded  knees,  in  which  Ada  and  I  did  not 
know  w^hich  to  pity  most,  the  bruises  or  the  dirt.  Mrs. 
Jellyby   merely   added,  with   the    serene   composure   with 


BAD  TRAINING.  207 

which    she    said    everything,    "  Go    along,    you    naughty 
Peepy!  "  and  fixed  her  fine  eyes  on  Africa  again. 

Here  Mrs.  Jellyby  was  guilty  of  two  wrongs,  one  of 
commission,  the  other  of  omission.  She  did  a  positive 
wrong  in  unjustly  calling  the  child  "  naughty  "  when  he 
was  merely  unfortunate.  Even  if  children  are  so  badly 
guided  that  they  do  wrong,  it  is  a  serious  mistake  to  make 
them  feel  consciously  "  bad  "  by  calling  them  unpleasant 
names.  It  is  always  wrong  to  define  in  the  child's  con- 
sciousness a  passing  wave  of  evil. 

Mrs.  Jellyby's  sin  of  omission  was  her  neglect  of  the 
opportunity  of  sympathizing  with  the  suffering  boy,  and 
of  training  him  to  bear  suffering  bravely  by  the  suggestion 
that  he  was  "  a  brave  little  soldier  home  from  the  war." 

Mr.  Jarndyce,  in  speaking  of  Harold  Skimpole's  chil- 
dren, said,  when  Richard  Carstone  asked  if  he  had  any 
children : 

"Yes,  Rick!  Half  a  dozen.  More!  Nearer  a  dozen,  I 
should  think.  But  he  has  never  looked  after  them.  How 
could  he?  He  wanted  somebody  to  look  after  him.  He  is 
a  child,  you  know!  "  said  Mr.  Jarndyce. 

"  And  have  the  children  looked  after  themselves  at  all, 
sir?  "  inquired  Richard. 

"  Why,  just  as  you  may  suppose,"  said  Mr.  Jarndyce, 
his  countenance  suddenly  falling.  "  It  is  said  that  the 
children  of  the  very  poor  are  not  brought  up,  but  dragged 
up.  Harold  Skimpole's  children  have  tumbled  up  some- 
how or  other " 

Again  Dickens  was  impressing  the  responsibility  of 
parents  for  the  care  and  proper  training  of  their  children. 

Mr.  Jarndyce  accounted  for  the  utterly  unpractical 
nature  of  Mr.  Skimpole  by  saying : 

"  Why,  he  is  all  sentiment,  and — and  susceptibility,  and 
— and  sensibility — and — and  imagination.  And  these  qual- 
ities are  not  regulated  in  him.  somehow.  I  suppose  the 
people  who  admired  him  for  them  in  his  youth  attached 
too  much  importance  to  them,  and  too  little  to  any  train- 
ing that  would  have  balanced  and  adjusted  them;  and  so 
he  became  what  he  is." 


208  DICKENS  AS  AN  EDUCATOR. 

Mrs.  Pardiggle  was  given  as  a  type  of  the  philan- 
thropic woman  who  does  not  neglect  her  children,  but 
whose  training  is  worse — much  worse  than  Mrs.  Jellyby's 
neglect.  The  Jellyby  children  had  as  much  motherly  sym- 
pathy as  the  Pardiggles,  and  they  had  freedom.  There 
is  always  this  advantage  in  neglect.  Louisa  Gradgrind 
gave  utterance  to  a  philosophical  principle  when  she  said 
to  her  father :  "  Oh !  if  you  had  only  neglected  me,  what 
a  much  better  and  much  happier  creature  I  should  have 
been."  Dickens  did  not  teach  that  neglect  is  good  train- 
ing, but  he  did  teach  that  it  is  a  lighter  curse  than  the 
Gradgrind  or  Pardiggle  training. 

The  Jellyby  children  had  a  slight  chance  to  turn  out 
moderately  well,  but  the  Pardiggle  children  were  certain 
to  be  morose,  hypocritical,  and  vicious.  They  were  cer- 
tain to  hate  all  forms  of  Christian  philanthropy.  Mrs. 
Pardiggle's  intentions  were  undoubtedly  good,  but  she 
destroyed  the  character  of  her  children,  nevertheless. 

"  These,  young  ladies,"  said  Mrs.  Pardiggle  with  great 
volubility,  after  the  first  salutations,  "  are  my  five  boys. 
You  may  have  seen  their  names  in  a  printed  subscription 
list  (perhaps  more  than  one)  in  the  possession  of  our 
esteemed  friend  Mr.  Jarndyce.  Egbert,  my  eldest 
(twelve),  is  the  boy  who  sent  out  his  pocket  money,  to  the 
amount  of  five  and  threepence  to  the  Tockahoopo  Indi- 
ans. Oswald,  my  second  (ten  and  a  half),  is  the  child  who 
contributed  two  and  ninepence  to  the  Great  National 
Smithers  Testimonial.  Francis,  my  third  (nine),  one  and 
sixpence  halfpenny;  Felix,  my  fourth  (seven),  eightpence 
to  the  Superannuated  Widows;  Alfred,  my  youngest  (five), 
has  voluntarily  enrolled  himself  in  the  Infant  Bonds  of 
Joy,  and  is  pledged  never  through  life  to  use  tobacco  in 
any  form." 

We  had  never  seen  such  dissatisfied  children.  It  was 
not  merely  that  they  w^ere  weazened  and  shrivelled — 
though  they  were  certainly  that  too — but  they  looked  abso- 
lutely ferocious  with  discontent.  At  the  mention  of  the 
Tockahoopo  Indians  I  could  really  have  supposed  Egbert 
to  be  one  of  the  most  baleful  members  of  that  tribe,  he 
gave  me  such  a  savage  frown.  The  face  of  each  child  as 
the  amount  of  his  contribution  w^as  mentioned  darkened 
in  a  peculiarly  vindictive  manner,  but  his  was  by  far  the 


BAD  TRAINIXG.  2U9 

worst.  I  must  except,  however,  the  little  recruit  into  the 
Infant  Bonds  of  Joy,  who  was  stolidly  and  evenly  miser- 
able. 

"  You  have  been  visiting,  I  understand,"  said  Mrs.  Par- 
diggle,  "  at  Mrs.  Jellyby's?  " 

We  said  yes,  we  had  passed  one  night  there. 

"  Mrs.  Jellyby  is  a  benefactor  to  society,  and  deserves  a 
helping  hand.  My  boys  have  contributed  to  the  African 
project — Egbert,  one  and  six,  being  the  entire  allowance 
of  nine  weeks;  Oswald,  one  and  a  penny  halfpenny,  being 
the  same;  the  rest,  according  to  their  little  means.  Nev- 
ertheless, I  do  not  go  with  Mrs.  Jellyby  in  all  things.  I 
do  not  go  with  Mrs.  Jellyby  in  her  treatment  of  her  young 
family.  It  has  been  noticed.  It  has  been  observed  that 
her  young  family  are  excluded  from  participation  in  the 
objects  to  which  she  is  devoted.  She  may  be  right,  she 
may  be  wrong;  but,  right  or  wrong,  this  is  not  my  course 
with  my  young  family.     I  take  them  everywhere." 

I  was  afterward  convinced  (and  so  w^as  Ada)  that  from 
the  ill-conditioned  eldest  child  these  words  extorted  a 
sharp  yell.  He  turned  it  off  into  a  yawn,  but  it  began  as 
a  yell. 

"  They  attend  matins  with  me  (very  prettily  done) 
at  half  past  six  o'clock  in  the  morning  all  the  year  round, 
including,  of  course,  the  depth  of  winter,"  said  ^Nlrs.  Par- 
diggle  rapidly,  "  and  they  are  with  me  during  the  revolv- 
ing duties  of  the  day.  I  am  a  school  lady,  I  am  a  visiting 
lady,  I  am  a  reading  lady,  I  am  a  distributing  lady;  I  am 
on  the  local  linen  box  committee,  and  many  general  com- 
mittees; and  my  canvassing  alone  is  very  extensive — per- 
haps no  one's  more  so.  But  they  are  my  companions 
everywhere;  and  by  these  means  they  acquire  that  knowl- 
edge of  the  poor,  and  that  capacity  of  doing  charitable 
business  in  general — in  short,  that  taste  for  the  sort  of 
thing — which  will  render  them  in  after  life  a  service  to 
their  neighbours,  and  a  satisfaction  to  themselves.  My 
young  family  are  not  frivolous;  they  expend  the  entire 
amount  of  their  allowance  in  subscriptions,  under  my 
direction;  and  they  have  attended  as  many  public  meet- 
ings, and  listened  to  as  many  lectures,  orations,  and  dis- 
cussions as  generally  fall  to  the  lot  of  few  grown  people. 
Alfred  (five),  who,  as  I  mentioned,  has  of  his  own  election 
joined  the  Infant  Bonds  of  Joy,  was  one  of  the  very  few 
children   who   manifested   consciousness   on   one    occasion. 


210  DICKENS  AS  AN  EDUCATOR. 

after  a  fervid  address  of  two  hours  from  the  chairman  of 
the  evening"." 

Alfred  glovv^ered  at  us  as  if  he  never  could,  or  would, 
forgive  the  injury  of  that  night. 

"  You  may  have  observed,  Miss  Summerson,"  said  Mrs. 
Pardiggle,  "  in  some  of  the  lists  to  which  I  have  referred, 
in  the  possession  of  our  esteemed  friend  Mr.  Jarndyce, 
that  the  names  of  my  young  family  are  concluded  with  the 
name  of  O.  A.  Pardiggle,  F.  K.  S.,  one  pound.  That  is 
their  father.  We  usually  observe  the  same  routine.  I  put 
down  my  mite  first;  then  my  young  family  enrol  their 
contributions,  according  to  their  ages  and  their  little 
means;  and  then  Mr.  Pardiggle  brings  up  the  rear.  Mr. 
Pardiggle  is  happy  to  throw  in  his  limited  donation,  under 
my  direction;  and  thus  things  are  made,  not  only  pleasant 
to  ourselves,  but,  we  trust,  improving-  to  others." 

Mrs.  Pardiggle  invited  Esther  and  Ada  to  go  out  with 
her  to  visit  a  "  wicked  brickmaker  "  in  the  neighbourhood. 
Ada  walked  ahead  with  Mrs.  Pardiggle  and  Esther  fol- 
lowed with  the  five  children.  She  had  an  interesting  ex- 
perience. 

I  am  very  fond  of  being  confided  in  by  children,  and 
am  happy  in  being  usually  favoured  in  that  respect,  but 
on  this  occasion  it  gave  me  great  uneasiness.  As  soon 
as  we  were  out  of  doors,  Egbert,  with  the  manner  of  a 
little  footpad,  demanded  a  shilling  of  me,  on  the  ground 
that  his  pocket  money  was  "  boned  "  from  him.  On  my 
pointing  out  the  great  impropriety  of  the  word,  especially 
in  connection  with  his  parent  (for  he  added  sulkily  "  By 
her!  "),  he  pinched  me  and  said,  "Oh,  then!  Now!  Who 
are  you?  You  wouldn't  like  it,  I  think!  What  does  she 
make  a  sham  for,  and  pretend  to  give  me  money,  and  take 
it  away  again?  Why  do  you  call  it  my  allowance,  and 
never  let  me  spend  it?  "  These  exasperating  questions  so 
inflamed  his  mind,  and  the  minds  of  Oswald  and  Francis, 
that  they  all  pinched  me  at  once,  and  in  a  dreadfully  ex- 
pert way;  screwing  up  such  little  pieces  of  my  arms  that 
I  could  hardly  forbear  crying  out.  Felix  at  the  same  time 
stamped  upon  my  toes.  And  the  Bond  of  Joy,  who,  on 
account  of  always  having  the  whole  of  his  little  income 
anticipated,  stood,  in  fact,  pledged  to  abstain  from  cakes 
as  well  as  tobacco,  so  swelled  with  grief  and  rage  when  we 
passed  a  pastry-cook  shop,  that  he  terrified  me  by  becom- 


BAD   TRAINING.  211 

ing  purple.  I  never  underwent  so  much,  both  in  body  and 
mind,  in  the  course  of  a  walk  with  young  people,  as  from 
these  unnaturally  constrained  children,  when  they  paid 
me  the  compliment  of  being  natural. 

In  the  brickmaker's  hovel  they  heard  something  of 
how  the  very  poor  brought  up  children,  or  failed  to  bring 
them  up,  in  Dickens's  time.  The  brickmaker  was  lying  at 
full  length  on  the  floor,  smoking  his  pipe.  He  gave  them 
no  welcome. 

I  wants  a  end  of  these  liberties  took  with  my  place.  I 
wants  a  end  of  being  drawed  like  a  badger.  Now  you 
are  a-going  to  poll-pry  and  question  according  to  custom 
— I  know  what  you're  a-going  to  be  up  to.  Well!  You 
haven't  got  no  occasion  to  be  up  to  it.  I'll  save  3'ou  the 
trouble.  Is  my  daughter  a-washin'?  Yes,  she  is  a-wash- 
in'.  Look  at  the  water.  Smell  it!  That's  wot  we  drinks. 
How  do  you  like  it,  and  what  do  you  think  of  gin,  instead? 
An't  my  place  dirty?  Yes,  it  is  dirty — it's  nat'rally  dirty, 
and  it's  nat'rally  on  wholesome;  and  we've  had  five  dirty 
and  onwholesome  children,  as  is  all  dead  infants,  and  so 
much  the  better  for  them,  and  for  us  besides. 

The  utter  carelessness  of  some  "  society  gentlemen " 
in  regard  to  the  education  of  their  children  is  referred  to 
in  the  description  Caddy  Jellyby  gave  of  her  lover,  the 
son  of  the  great  Turveydrop. 

Caddy  told  me  that  her  lover's  education  had  been  so 
neglected  that  it  was  not  always  easy  to  read  his  notes. 
She  said  if  he  were  not  so  anxious  about  his  spelling,  and 
took  less  pains  to  make  it  clear,  he  would  do  better;  but  he 
put  so  many  unnecessary  letters  into  short  words  that 
they  sometimes  quite  lost  their  English  appearance.  "  He 
does  it  with  the  best  intention,"  observed  Caddy,  "  but  it 
hasn't  the  effect  he  means,  poor  fellow!  "  Caddy  then 
went  on  to  reason  how  could  he  be  expected  to  be  a 
scholar  when  he  had  passed  his  whole  life  in  the  dancing 
school,  and  had  done  nothing  but  teach  and  fag,  fag  and 
teach,  morning,  noon,  and  night!  And  what  did  it  mat- 
ter? She  could  write  letters  enough  for  both,  as  she  knew 
to  her  cost,  and  it  was  far  better  for  him  to  be  amiable 
than  learned.  "  Besides,  it's  not  as  if  I  was  an  accom- 
plished girl,  who  had  any  right  to  give  herself  airs,"  said 
Caddy.     "  I  know  little  enough,  I  am  sure,  thanks  to  ma!  " 


212  DICKENS  AS  AN  EDUCATOR. 

The  products  of  the  fashionable  education  of  Dickens's 
time  (there  is  not  so  much  of  it  now,  thanks  largely  to 
Dickens)  were  shown  in  the  cousins  of  Sir  Leicester  Ded- 
lock. 

The  rest  of  the  cousins  are  ladies  and  gentlemen  of 
various  ages  and  capacities;  the  major  part,  amiable  and 
sensible,  and  likely  to  have  done  w^ell  enough  in  life  if 
they  could  have  overcome  their  cousinship;  as  it  is,  they 
are  almost  all  a  little  w'orsted  by  it,  and  lounge  in  purpose- 
less and  listless  paths,  and  seem  to  be  quite  as  much  at  a 
loss  how  to  dispose  of  themselves  as  anybody  else  can  be 
how^  to  dispose  of  them. 

In  Little  Dorrit  Mrs.  General  is  used  as  a  type  of  two 
varieties  of  false  training.  Her  pupils  were  never  to  be 
allowed  to  know  that  there  was  anything  vulgar  or  wrong 
in  the  world.  She  believed  the  good  old  theory,  that 
adulthood  had  two  duties  in  developing  purity  of  char- 
acter, one  to  prevent  children  knowing  that  there  was 
any  evil,  the  other  to  chain  them  back  or  beat  them  back 
from  evil,  if  they  accidentally  found  it  and  wished  to 
investigate  it.  She  never  thought  of  training  a  child  to 
do  its  part  in  reducing  the  evil  around  him.  Seclusion 
and  exclusion  took  the  place  of  community  in  her  per- 
verted philosophy. 

She  believed,  too,  in  educating  the  surface.  She  did 
not  work  from  within  intellectually  or  spiritually.  She 
varnished  the  surface  that  it  might  receive  the  proper 
society  polish,  therefore  neither  heart  nor  head  required 
much  attention.  According  to  her  theory,  young  ladies 
should  never  be  so  unladylike  as  to  have  great  purposes 
or  great  ideas.  Unfortunately  some  of  her  descendants 
are  still  living. 

"  Fanny,"  observed  Mrs.  General,  "  at  present  forms 
too  many  opinions.  Perfect  breeding  forms  none,  and  is 
never  demonstrative. 

"  I  have  conversed  with  Amy  several  times  since  we 
have  been  residing  here  on  the  general  subject  of  the  for- 
mation of  a  demeanour.  She  has  expressed  herself  to  me 
as  wondering  exceedingly  at  Venice.  I  have  mentioned  to 
her  that  it  is  better  not  to  wonder." 


BAD   TRAINING.  213 

Her  father  sent  for  xA.my  to  reprove  her  for  her  lack  of 
what  Mrs.  General  regarded  as  true  culture,  and  Amy 
said: 

"  I  think,  father,  I  require  a  little  time." 
"  Papa  is  a  preferable  mode  of  address,"  observed  Mrs. 
General.  "  Father  is  rather  vulgar,  my  dear.  The  word 
papa,  besides,  gives  a  pretty  form  to  the  lips.  Papa,  pota- 
toes, poultry,  prunes,  and  prism  are  all  verj'  good  words 
for  the  lips;  especially  prunes  and  prism.  You  will  find 
it  serviceable,  in  the  formation  of  a  demeanour,  if  you 
sometimes  say  to  yourself  in  company — on  entering  a 
room,  for  instance — papa,  potatoes,  poultry,  prunes  and 
prism,  prunes  and  prism. 

"  If  ^liss  Amy  Dorrit  will  direct  her  own  attention  to, 
and  will  accept  of  my  poor  assistance  in,  the  formation  of 
a  surface,  Mr.  Dorrit  will  have  no  further  cause  of  anx- 
iety. May  I  take  this  opportunity  of  remarking,  as  an 
instance  in  point,  that  it  is  scarcely  delicate  to  look  at 
vagrants  with  the  attention  which  I  have  seen  bestowed 
upon  them  by  a  very  dear  young  friend  of  mine?  They 
should  not  be  looked  at.  Nothing  disag'reeable  should 
ever  be  looked  at.  Apart  from  such  a  habit  standing  in 
the  way  of  that  graceful  equanimity  of  surface  which  is 
so  expressive  of  good  breeding,  it  hardly  seems  compatible 
with  refinement  of  mind.  A  truly  refined  mind  will  seem 
to  be  ignorant  of  the  existence  of  anything  that  is  not 
perfectly  proper,  placid,  and  pleasant." 

Great  Expectations  has  numerous  illustrations  of  bad 
training.  Mrs.  Gargery  had  many  of  the  worst  charac- 
teristics of  disrespectful  and  coercive  adulthood.  She 
abused  Pip  for  asking  questions,  scolded  him,  thimbled 
him,  and  sent  him  to  bed  in  the  dark.  She  told  him  he 
was  on  the  way  to  commit  murder  and  a  great  variety  of 
crimes,  because  criminals  always  "  begin  by  asking  ques- 
tions." She  kept  him  in  a  state  of  constant  terror.  She 
tried  in  every  possible  way  to  lower  his  opinion  of  him- 
self, which  is  a  crime  against  childliood.  One  of  the  worst 
features  of  the  old  education  was  its  teaching  of  a  spurious 
humility,  a  depreciation  of  selfhood.  One  of  the  greatest 
weaknesses  of  humanity  is  the  general  lack  of  true  faith 
of  men  and  women  in  their  own  powers.  He  was  told  that 
15 


214  DICKENS  AS  AN  EDUCATOR. 

he  was  "  naterally  wicious,"  and  made  the  butt  of  all  the 
observations  relating  to  boys  who  possessed  any  vices 
whatever. 

Dickens  revealed  all  these  characteristics  to  condemn 
them. 

Pip  discussed  a  very  grave  question  for  students  of 
children  when  he  was  accounting  for  the  fact  that  he  de- 
liberately misstated  facts  so  systematically  in  answering 
the  questions  of  his  sister  and  Mr.  Pumblechook,  in  re- 
gard to  Miss  Havisham  and  the  peculiarities  of  her  mys- 
terious home. 

When  I  reached  home  my  sister  was  very  curious  to 
know  all  about  Miss  Havisham's,  and  asked  a  number  of 
questions.  And  I  soon  found  myself  getting  heavily 
bumped  from  behind  in  the  nape  of  the  neck  and  the 
small  of  the  back,  and  having  my  face  ignominiously 
shoved  against  the  kitchen  wall,  because  I  did  not  answer 
those  questions  at  sufficient  length. 

If  a  dread  of  not  being  understood  be  hidden  in  the 
breasts  of  other  young  peojDle  to  anything'  like  the  extent 
to  which  it  used  to  be  hidden  in  mine — which  I  consider 
probable,  as  I  have  no  particular  reason  to  suspect  myself 
of  having  been  a  monstrosity — it  is  the  key  to  many  reser- 
vations. I  felt  convinced  that  if  I  described  Miss  Havi- 
sham's as  my  eyes  had  seen  it  I  should  not  be  understood. 

Whitewash  on  the  forehead  hardens  the  brain  into  a 
state  of  obstinacy  perhaps.  Anj^how,  with  whitewash 
from  the  wall  on  my  forehead,  my  obstinacy  was  adaman- 
tine. 

Two  thoughts  are  worthy  of  note  in  this  part  of  Pip's 
training:  abuse,  especially  of  the  thumping,  bumping, 
shaking  variety,  makes  a  child  obstinate;  and  many  of 
childhood's  difficulties  arise  from  not  being  understood, 
or  the  fear  of  being  misunderstood. 

Pip  resented,  as  all  children  do,  more  than  they  can 
show,  the  unpleasant  habit  of  taking  patronizing  liberties 
with  them. 

And  here  I  may  remark  that  when  Mr.  Wopsle  referred 
to  me,  he  considered  it  a  necessary  part  of  such  refer- 
ence to  rumple  my  hair  and  poke  it  into  my  eyes.  I  can 
not  conceive  why  everybody  of  his  standing  w^ho  visited  at 


BAD   TRAIXIXG.  215 

our  house  should  always  have  put  me  through  the  same 
inflammatory  process  under  similar  circumstances.  Yet 
I  do  not  call  to  mind  that  I  was  ever  in  my  earlier  youth 
the  subject  of  remark  in  our  social  family  circle,  but 
some  large-handed  person  took  some  such  ophthalmic 
steps  to  patronize  me. 

And  Mr.  Pumblechook !  What  could  a  boy  do  but  hate 
him? 

Meanwhile,  councils  went  on  in  the  kitchen  at  home, 
fraught  with  almost  insupportable  aggravation  to  my  ex- 
asperated spirit.  That  ass,  Pumblechook,  used  often  to 
come  over  of  a  night  for  the  purpose  of  discussing  my 
prospects  with  my  sister;  and  1  really  do  believe  (to  this 
hour  with  less  penitence  than  I  ought  to  feel)  that  if 
these  hands  could  have  taken  a  linchpin  out  of  his  chaise 
cart,  they  would  have  done  it.  The  miserable  man  was  a 
man  of  that  confined  stolidity  of  mind  that  he  could  not 
discuss  my  prospects  without  having  me  before  him — as 
it  were,  to  operate  upon — and  he  would  drag  me  up  from 
my  stool  (usually  by  the  collar)  where  I  was  quiet  in 
a  corner,  and,  putting  me  before  the  fire  as  if  I  were 
going  to  be  cooked,  would  begin  by  saying,  "  Now,  mum^ 
here  is  this  boy!  Here  is  this  boy  which  you  brought  up 
by  hand.  Hold  up  your  head,  boy,  and  be  forever  grateful 
unto  them  which  so  did  so.  Xow,  mum,  with  respections  ta 
this  boy  I  "  And  then  he  would  rumple  my  hair  the  wrong 
way — which  from  my  earliest  remembrance,  as  already 
hinted,  I  have  in  my  soul  denied  the  right  of  any  fellow- 
creature  to  do — and  would  hold  me  before  him  by  the  sleeve: 
a  spectacle  of  imbecility  only  to  be  equalled  by  himself. 

Mrs.  Pocket's  training  was  given  as  an  illustration  of 
the  folly  of  giving  girls  no  practical  education. 

Her  father  had  directed  Mrs.  Pocket  to  be  brought  up 
from  her  cradle  as  one  who,  in  the  nature  of  things,  must 
marry  a  title,  and  who  was  to  be  guarded  from  the  acqui- 
sition of  plebeian  domestic  knowledge. 

So  successful  a  watch  and  ward  had  been  established 
over  the  young  lady  by  this  judicious  parent,  that  she  had 
grown  up  highly  ornamental,  but  perfectly  helpless  and 
useless. 

Her  home  proved  that  she  had  grown  up  a  credit  to 
her  training.     There  never  was   a  family  more  utterly 


210  DICKE^^S   AS   AN   EDUCATOll. 

without  order,  management,  or  system  than  Mrs.  Pocket's. 
Servants  and  children  indulged  in  unending  turmoil  and 
conflict.  Dickens  added  a  grim  humour  to  the  picture  by 
saying : 

Mr.  Pocket  was  out  lecturing;  for  he  was  a  most  de- 
lightful lecturer  on  domestic  economj^  and  his  treatises 
on  the  management  of  children  and  servants  were  consid- 
ered the  very  best  text-books  on  those  themes.  But  Mrs. 
Pocket  was  at  home  and  was  in  a  little  difficulty,  on  ac- 
count of  the  baby's  having  been  accommodated  with  a 
needle-case  to  keep  him  quiet  during  the  unaccountable 
absence  (with  a  relative  in  the  Foot  Guards)  of  Millers. 
And  more  needles  were  missing  than  it  could  be  regarded 
as  quite  wholesome  for  a  patient  of  such  tender  years 
either  to  apply  externally  or  to  take  as  a  tonic. 

Mrs.  Pocket  continued  to  read  her  one  book  about  the 
dignities  of  the  titled  aristocracy,  and  prescribed  "  Bed  " 
as  a  sovereign  remedy  for  baby. 

Dickens  believed  a  mother  should  find  her  highest  joy 
and  most  sacred  duty  in  training  her  own  children.  Mrs. 
Pocket  was  a  type  to  be  avoided. 

The  description  of  the  dinner  at  Mr.  Pocket's,  after 
which  the  six  children  were  brought  in,  and  Mrs.  Pocket 
attempted  to  mind  the  baby,  is  one  of  the  raciest  bits 
of  Dickens's  humour.  One  observation  in  connection  with 
the  dinner  is  worth  studying. 

After  dinner  the  children  were  introduced,  and  Mrs. 
Coiler  made  admiring  comments  on  their  eyes,  noses,  and 
legs — a  sagacious  w^ay.  of  improving  their  minds. 

How  few  yet  clearly  understand  this  profound  criti- 
cism of  bad  training!  How  many  children  are  still  made 
vain  and  frivolous  by  having  their  attention  directed 
especially  to  their  physical  attributes  and  their  dress, 
rather  than  to  the  things  that  would  yield  them  much 
greater  immediate  happiness  and  a  much  truer  basis  for 
future  development ! 

In  his  last  book,  Edwin  Drood,  Dickens  showed  that  he 
still  hated  the  tyranny  that  dwarfs  and  distorts  the  souls 
of  children. 

Neville  Landless   described  his   own  training  to   his 


BAD  TRAINING.  217 

tutor,  who  had  won  his  confidence  as  it  had  never  been 
won  before. 

"  We  lived  with  a  stepfather  there.  Our  mother  died 
there,  when  we  were  little  children.  We  have  had  a 
wretched  existence.  She  made  him  our  guardian,  and  he 
was  a  miserly  wretch  who  grudged  us  food  to  eat  and 
clothes  to  wear. 

"  This  stepfather  of  ours  was  a  cruel  brute  as  well  as  a 
grinding  one.  It  was  well  he  died  when  he  did,  or  I 
might  have  killed  him." 

Mr.  Crisparkle  stopped  short  in  the  moonlight  and 
looked  at  his  hopeful  pupil  in  consternation. 

"  I  surprise  you,  sir?  "  he  said,  wdth  a  quick  change  to 
a  submissive  manner. 

"  You  shock  me;   unspeakably-  shock  me." 

The  pupil  hung  his  head  for  a  little  while,  as  they 
walked  on,  and  then  said:  "  You  never  saw  him  beat  your 
sister.  I  have  seen  him  beat  mine,  more  than  once  or 
twice,  and  I  never  forgot  it. 

"  I  have  had,  sir,  from  my  earliest  remembrance,  to 
suppress  a  deadly-  and  bitter  hatred.  This  has  made  me 
secret  and  revengeful.  I  have  been  always  tyrannically 
held  down  by  the  strong  hand.  This  has  driven  me,  in  my 
weakness,  to  the  resource  of  being  false  and  mean.  I 
have  been  stinted  of  education,  liberty,  money,  dress,  the 
very  necessaries  of  life,  the  commonest  pleasures  of  child- 
hood, the  commonest  possessions  of  youth.  This  has 
caused  me  to  be  utterly  wanting  in  I  do  not  know  what 
emotions,  or  remembrances,  or  good  instincts — I  have  not 
even  a  name  for  the  thing,  you  see — that  you  have  had  to 
work  upon  in  other  young  men  to  whom  you  have  been 
accustomed." 

Hatred  instead  of  love;  product,  a  secret  and  revenge- 
ful character.  "  Tyrannically  held  down  by  a  strong 
hand  " ;  product,  falseness  and  meanness.  "  Stinted  of 
education,  liberty,  money,  dress,  the  very  necessaries  of 
life,  the  commonest  pleasures  of  childhood,  the  common- 
est possessions  of  youth " ;  product,  a  manhood  utterly 
barren  in  true  emotions,  or  pleasant  memories,  or  good 
instincts. 

No  other  writer  has  described  so  many  phases  of  bad 
training  as  Dickens.  \ 


CHAPTER    Xli. 

GOOD   TRAINING. 

Dickens  wrote  much  less  about  good  training  than 
about  bad  training.  It  was  the  part  of  a  true  philosopher 
and  a  profound  student  of  human  nature  to  do  so.  Pic- 
tures of  wrong  treatment  of  children  accomplished  a 
double  purpose.  They  made  men  hate  the  wrong,  and 
made  them  more  clearly  conscious  of  the  right  than  pic- 
tures of  the  right  alone  could  have  done.  Descriptions  of 
ideal  conditions  can  not  make  as  deep  impressions  as 
descriptions  of  utterly  bad  conditions  in  the  present  stage 
of  himaan  evolution. 

His  revelation  of  cruel  tyranny,  of  will  breaking,  of 
cramming,  of  dwarfing  of  individuality,  of  distorting  of 
imagination,  of  harshness,  of  lack  of  sympathy,  of  evil  in 
a  hundred  hideous  forms,  made  men  more  conscious  of 
their  corresponding  opposites  than  attempts  to  reveal 
these  opposites  by  direct  effort  could  have  done;  and  in 
addition  it  stirred  in  human  hearts  everywhere  the  de- 
termination to  remove  or  remedy  the  wrong. 

Little  Nell's  grandfather  gave  her  a  good  training. 
Omitting  poverty  and  loneliness,  and  some  strange  com- 
panionships, she  had  a  training  calculated  to  make  her 
the  supremely  pure  and  attractive  child  she  was.  Her 
grandfather  loved  her  passionately;  he  had  never  been 
unkind  to  her,  he  had  taught  her  carefully  in  the  virtues 
that  are  learned  by  the  unselfish  performance  of  duty; 
she  had  the  opportunity  for  simple,  loving  service,  and 
she  was  trained  to  have  profound  reverence  for  and  true 
faith  in  God. 

Her  grandfather  left  her  alone  every  night,  yet  she  was 
never  afraid.  Dickens  describes  their  usual  parting  in 
the  evening. 

218 


GOOD  TRAIXIXG.  219 

Then  she  ran  to  the  old  man,  who  folded  her  in  his 
arms  and  bade  God  bless  her. 

."  Sleep  soundly,  Xell,"  he  said  in  a  low  voice,  "  and 
angels  guard  thy  bed  I  Do  not  forget  thy  prayers,  my 
sweet." 

"  Xo,  indeed,"  answered  the  child  fervently,  "  they 
make  me  feel  so  happy  I  " 

"  That's  well;  1  know  they  do;  they  should,"  said  the 
old  man.  "  Bless  thee  a  hundred  times!  Early  in  the 
morning  I  shall  be  home." 

"  You'll  not  ring  twice,"  returned  the  child.  ''  The  bell 
wakes  me,  even  in  the  middle  of  a  dream." 

The  Toodle  family  is  painted  in  direct  contrast  to  tlie 
Dombey  family  in  the  relationship  of  parents  to  children. 
Mrs.  Toodle  came  to  nurse  Paul  Dombey  when  his  mother 
died.  Mr.  Toodle  himself  came  too,  and  Mr.  Dombey 
called  him  in  to  speak  to  him. 

He  was  a  strong,  loose,  round-shouldered,  shuffling, 
shaggy  fellow,  on  whom  his  clothes  sat  negligently-;  with 
a  good  deal  of  hair  and  whisker,  deepened  in  its  natural 
tint,  perhaps,  by  smoke  and  coal-dust;  hard  knotty  hands; 
and  a  square  forehead,  as  coarse  in  grain  as  the  bark  of 
an  oak.  A  thorough  contrast  in  all  respects  to  Mr.  Dom- 
bey, who  was  one  of  those  close-shaved,  close-cut  moneyed 
gentlemen  who  are  glossy  and  crisp  like  new  bank  notes, 
and  who  seem  to  be  artificially  braced  and  tightened  as 
by  the  stimulating  action  of  golden  shower  baths. 

"  You  have  a  son,  I  believe?  "  said  Mr.  Dombey. 

"  Four  on  'em,  sir.     Four  hims  and  a  her.     All  alive!  " 

"  Why,  it's  as  much  as  you  can  afford  to  keep  them!  " 
said  Mr.  Dombey. 

"  I  couldn't  hardly  afford  but  one  thing  in  the  world 
less,  sir." 

"What  is  that?" 

"  To  lose  'em,  sir." 

"  Can  you  read?  "  asked  Mr.  Dombey. 

"  Why,  not  partick'ler,  sir." 

"Write?" 

"  With  chalk,  sir?  " 

"With  anything?" 

"  I  could  make  shift  to  chalk  a  little  bit,  I  think,  if  I 
was  put  to  it,"  said  Toodle,  after  some  reflection. 


220  DICKENS  AS  AN  EDUCATOR. 

"  And  yet,"  said  Mr.  Dombey,  "  you  are  two  or  three 
and  thirty,  I  suppose?" 

"  Thereabout,  I  suppose,  sir,"  answered  Toodle,  after 
more  reflection. 

"  Then  why  don't  you  learn?  "  asked  Mr.  Dombey. 

"  So  I'm  ag-oing  to,  sir.  One  of  my  little  boys  is  agoing 
to  learn  me,  when  he's  old  enough,  and  been  to  school 
himself." 

What  a  beautiful  picture  of  the  true  relationship  that 
should  exist  between  a  m.other  and  her  children  is  given  in 
the  reception  to  Mrs.  Toodle  when  she  went  home  to  visit 
her  family! 

"Why,  Polly!  "  cried  her  sister.  "You!  what  a  turn 
you  have  given  me!  who'd  have  thought  it!  come  along  in, 
Polly!  How  well  you  do  look,  to  be  sure!  The  children 
will  go  half  wild  to  see  you,  Polly,  that  they  will." 

That  they  did,  if  one  might  judge  from  the  noise  they 
made,  and  the  way  in  which  they  dashed  at  Polly  and 
dragged  her  to  a  lovv^  chair  in  the  chimney  corner,  where 
her  own  honest  apple  face  became  immediately  the  centre 
of  a  bunch  of  smaller  pippins,  all  laying  their  rosy  cheeks 
close  to  it,  and  all  evidently  the  growth  of  the  same  tree. 
As  to  Polly,  she  was  full  as  noisy  and  vehement  as  the  chil- 
dren; and  it  was  not  until  she  was  quite  out  of  breath,  and 
her  hair  was  hanging  all  about  her  flushed  face,  and  her 
new  christening  attire  was  very  much  dishevelled,  that  any 
pause  took  place  in  the  confusion.  Even  then,  the  small- 
est Toodle  but  one  remained  in  her  lap,  holding  on  tight 
with  both  arms  round  her  neck;  while  the  smallest  Toodle 
but  two  mounted  on  the  back  of  the  chair,  and  made  des- 
perate efforts,  with  one  leg  in  the  air,  to  kiss  her  round 
the  corner. 

Unfortunately  the  eldest  Toodle,  nicknamed  Biler,  was 
sent  to  the  grinders'  school  by  Mr.  Dombey,  and  he  was  so 
badly  treated  that  he  played  truant  and  got  into  bad 
company;  but  his  mother  clung  to  him  and  treated  him 
kindly,  and  hoped  for  him  still.  Mr.  Carker  went  home 
with  Biler  to  satisfy  himself  in  regard  to  his  family. 

"  This  fellow,"  said  Mr.  Carker  to  Polly,  giving  him  a 
gentle  shake,  "  is  your  son,  eh,  ma'am?  " 

"  Yes,  sir,"  sobbed  Polly,  with  a  courtesy;  "  yes,  sir." 
"A  bad  son,  I  am  afraid?  "  said  Mr.  Carker. 


GOOD   TRAINING.  221 

"  Never  a  bad  son  to  me,  sir,"  returned  Polly. 

"To  whom,  then?  "  demanded  Mr.  Carker. 

"  He  has  been  a  little  wild,  sir,"  replied  Polly,  check- 
ing the  baby,  who  was  making  convulsive  efforts  with  his 
arms  and  legs  to  launch  himself  on  Biler,  through  the 
ambient  air,  "  and  has  gone  with  wrong  companions;  but  I 
hope  he  has  seen  the  misery  of  that,  sir,  and  will  do  well 
again." 

When  Mr.  Carker  had  concluded  his  visit,  as  he  made 
his  way  among  the  crowding  children  to  the  door,  Rob 
retreated  on  his  mother,  and  took  her  and  the  baby  in  the 
same  repentant  hug. 

"  I'll  try  hard,  dear  mother,  now.  Upon  my  soul  I 
will!  "  said  Rob. 

"  Oh,  do,  my  dear  boy!  I  am  sure  you  will,  for  our 
sakes  and  your  own!  "  cried  Polly,  kissing  him.  "  But 
you're  coming  back  to  speak  to  me,  when  you  have  seen 
the  gentleman  away?  " 

"  I  don't  know,  mother."  Rob  hesitated,  and  looked 
down.     "Father — when's  he  coming  home?" 

"  Not  till  two  o'clock  to-morrow  morning." 

"I'll  come  back,  mother,  dear!  "  cried  Rob.  And  pass- 
ing through  the  shrill  cry  of  his  brothers  and  sisters  in 
reception  of  this  promise,  he  followed  Mr.  Carker  out. 

"What!  "  said  Mr.  Carker,  who  had  heard  this.  "You 
have  a  bad  father,  have  you?  " 

"  No,  sir!  "  returned  Rob,  amazed.  "  There  ain't  a  bet- 
ter nor  a  kinder  father  going  than  mine  is." 

"Why  don't  you  want  to  see  him,  then?"  asked  his 
patron. 

"  There's  such  a  difference  between  a  father  and  a 
mother,  sir,"  said  Rob,  after  faltering  for  a  moment.  "  He 
couldn't  hardly  believe  yet  that  I  was  going  to  do  better — 
though  I  know  he'd  try  to;  but  a  mother — she  always  be- 
lieves what's  good,  sir;  at  least  I  know  my  mother  does, 
God  bless  her!  " 

It  was  not  the  fault  of  his  home  that  Biler  went  astray. 

Nor  did  Dickens  fail  to  give  a  picture  for  the  fathers 
too.  Mr.  Toodle  was  a  workman  on  a  train,  and  great  was 
the  joy  in  the  family  when  father  came  home. 

"  Polly,  my  gal,"  said  Mr.  Toodle,  with  a  young  Toodle 
on  each  knee  and  two  more  making  tea  for  him,  and 
plenty  more  scattered   about — Mr.   Toodle  was  never  out 


222  DICKENS   AS  AN   EDUCATOR. 

of  children,  but  always  kept  a  good  supply  on  hand — 
"  you  ain't  seen  our  Biler  lately,  have  you?  " 

"  No,"  replied  Polly,  "  but  he's  almost  certain  to  look  in 
to-nig"ht.     It's  his  right  evening,  and  he's  very  regular." 

"  I  suppose,"  said  Mr.  Toodle,  relishing  his  meal  in- 
finitely, "  as  our  Biler  is  a-doin'  now  about  as  well  as  a  boy 
can  do,  eh,  Polly?  " 

"  Oh!  he's  a-doing  beautiful!  "  responded  Polly. 

"  He  ain't  got  to  be  at  all  secretlike — has  he,  Polly?  " 
inquired  Mr.  Toodle. 

"No!  "  said  Mrs.  Toodle  plumply. 

"  I'm  glad  he  ain't  got  to  be  at  all  secretlike,  Polly," 
observed  Mr.  Toodle  in  his  slow  and  measured  way,  and 
shovelling  in  his  bread  and  butter  with  a  clasp  knife,  as  if 
he  w^ere  stoking  himself,  "  because  that  don't  look  well;  do 
it,  Polly?" 

"  Why,  of  course,  it  don't,  father.     How  can  you  ask?  " 

"  You  see,  my  boys  and  gals,"  said  Mr.  Toodle,  looking 
round  upon  his  family,  "  wotever  you're  up  to  in  a  honest 
way,  it's  my  opinion  as  you  can't  do  better  than  be  open. 
If  you  find  yourselves  in  cuttings  or  in  tunnels,  don't  you 
play  no  secret  games.  Keep  your  whistles  going,  and  let's 
know  where  you  are." 

The  rising  Toodles  set  up  a  shrill  murmur,  expressive 
of  their  resolution  to  profit  by  the  paternal  advice. 

"  But  what  makes  you  say  this  along  of  Rob,  father?  " 
asked  his  wife  anxiously. 

"  Polly,  old  'ooman,"  said  Mr.  Toodle,  "  I  don't  know 
as  I  said  it  partickler  along  o'  Rob,  I'm  sure.  I  starts 
light  with  Rob  only;  I  comes  to  a  branch;  I  takes  on  what 
I  finds  there;  and  a  whole  train  of  ideas  gets  coupled  on 
to  him  afore  I  knows  where  I  am,  or  where  they  comes 
from.  What  a  Junction  a  man's  thoughts  is,"  said  Mr. 
Toodle,  "to  be  sure!  " 

This  profound  reflection  Mr.  Toodle  washed  down  w^th 
a  pint  mug  of  tea,  and  proceeded  to  solidify  with  a  great 
weight  of  bread  and  butter;  charging  his  young  daughters 
meanwhile  to  keep  j)lenty  of  hot  water  in  the  pot,  as  he 
was  uncommon  dry,  and  should  take  the  indefinite  quan- 
tity of  "  a  sight  of  mugs  "  before  his  thirst  was  appeased. 

And  as  the  jolly  old  fellow  ate  his  supper  lie  was 
surrounded  by  all  his  smaller  children,  some  on  his  knees, 
and  others  under  his  arms,  and  all  getting  bites  of  bread 


GOOD  TRAINING.  223 

and  butter  and  sups  of  tea  in  turn,  although  they  had 
had  their  own  supper  before  he  came  home. 

Dickens  did  not  wish  to  teach  that  such  relationships 
should  exist  between  parents  and  children  in  the  homes 
of  the  labouring  classes  only.  He  used  Toodle  and  his 
family  as  representing  one  extreme  of  society,  as  at  pres- 
ent constituted,  in  sharp  contrast  with  Mr.  Dombey's 
family  at  the  other  extreme.  How  happy  the  one  home 
with  barely  enough  to  secure  the  necessaries  of  life!  how 
mxiserable  the  other  with  unlimited  wealth!  And  the  best 
things  in  the  Toodle  home  were  the  children,  and  the  love 
and  unconventional  freedom  between  them  and  their  par- 
ents. With  such  a  feeling  of  community  and  love  in  all 
homes,  and  with  schools  of  a  proper  character,  the  chil- 
dren will  be  trained  for  higher,  and  progressively  ad- 
vancing manhood  and  womanhood. 

David  Copperfield's  training  was  not  all  coercive  and 
degrading.  Before  the  Murdstones  came  to  blight  his 
young  life  he  had  joy  and  sympathy  to  stimulate  all  that 
was  good  in  him.  His  mother  and  Peggotty  were  kind  and 
true.  The  three  had  perfect  faith  in  each  other.  They 
formed  a  blessed  unity.  "  The  memory  of  his  lessons  in 
those  happy  days  recalled  no  feeling  of  disgust  or  reluc- 
tance. On  the  contrary',  he  seemed  to  have  walked  along 
a  path  of  flowers,  and  to  have  been  cheered  by  the  gentle- 
ness of  his  mother's  voice  and  manner  all  the  way." 

Again,  after  the  Murdstone  interval  of  terror  and 
cruelty,  David  was  kindly  treated  and  well  trained  by  his 
aunt.  Her  relationship  toward  him  throughout  his  whole 
youth  is  well  presented  in  her  parting  words,  as  she  left 
him  at  Mr.  Wickfield's  house,  where  he  was  to  live  while 
at  Doctor  Strong's  school. 

She  told  me  that  everything  would  be  arranged  for  me 
by  Mr.  Wickfield,  and  that  I  should  want  for  nothing,  and 
gave  me  the  kindest  words  and  the  best  advice. 

"  Trot,"  said  my  aunt  in  conclusion,  "  be  a  credit  to 
yourself,  to  me,  and  ^Ir.  Dick,  and  Heaven  be  with  you  I  " 

I  was  greatly  overcome,  and  could  only  thank  her  again 
and  again,  and  send  my  love  to  Mr.  Dick. 

"  Never,"  said  my  aunt,  "  be  mean  in  anything;  never 


224  DICKENS  AS  AN  EDUCATOR. 

be  false;   never  be  cruel.     Avoid  these  three  vices,  Trot, 
and  I  can  alw^ays  be  hopeful  of  you." 

In  Mr.  Wickfield's  home  and  in  Doctor  Strong's  school 
he  had  ideal  conditions  of  development.  He  received  re- 
spectful consideration,  fatherly  interest,  wise  counsel,  and 
generous  hospitality  from  Mr.  Wickfield.  With  Agnes  he 
had  the  most  delightful  relationship  of  sympathetic  and 
stimulating  friendship.  There  is  no  better  influence  in 
the  life  of  a  boy  opening  into  young  manhood  than  the 
true  friendship  of  a  girl  of  the  character  of  Agnes. 

In  Doctor  Strong's  school  David  met  with  the  best 
conditions  of  good  training  yet  revealed  by  the  "  new 
education." 

The  boys  were  taught  politeness,  courtesy,  and  con- 
sideration for  the  feelings  of  others  in  Doctor  Strong's 
school. 

About  five-and-twenty  boys  were  studiously  engaged 
at  their  books  when  we  went  in,  but  they  rose  to  give  the 
Doctor  good  morning,  and  remained  standing  w^hen  they 
saw  Mr.  Wickfield  and  me. 

"  A  new  boy,  young  gentlemen,"  said  the  Doctor; 
"  Trotwood  Copperfield." 

One  Adams,  who  was  the  head  boy,  then  stepped  out 
of  his  place  and  welcomed  me.  He  looked  like  a  young 
clergyman,  in  his  white  cravat,  but  he  was  very  affable 
and  good-humoured;  and  he  showed  me  my  place,  and  pre- 
sented me  to  the  masters  in  a  gentlemanly  way  that  would 
have  put  me  at  my  ease  if  anything  could. 

Physical  education  received  due  attention  at  Doctor 
Strong's  school.  "  We  had  noble  games  out  of  doors." 
These  outdoor  sports  have  done  more  than  anything  else 
to  develop  the  strength  and  energy  of  the  British  char- 
acter. Thoughtful  educators  everywhere  recognise  the 
value  of  play  in  the  development  of  the  physical,  the  in- 
tellectual, and  the  spiritual  nature  as  taught  by  Froebel. 
The  love  of  play  has  been  one  of  the  distinctive  elements 
of  the  British  people. 

Doctor  Strong's  personal  influence  was  good.  "  He 
was  the  idol  of  the  whole  school."  He  was  not  coercive 
nor  restrictive;  he  was  an  inspiration  to  effort  and  to 


GOOD  TRAINING.  225 

manliness  of  conduct.  "  He  was  the  kindest  of  men,"  full 
of  sympathy  with  boyhood  and  with  individual  boys. 
"  He  had  a  simple  faith  in  him  that  might  have  touched 
the  stone  hearts  of  the  very  urns  upon  the  wall."  Mr. 
Wick  field  told  David  that  he  feared  some  of  the  boys 
might  take  advantage  of  his  kindness  and  faith,  but  boys 
do  not  abuse  the  confidence  of  such  teachers.  "  He  ap- 
pealed in  everything  to  the  honour  and  good  faith  of  the 
boys,  and  avowed  his  intention  to  rely  on  the  possession  of 
these  qualities  unless  they  proved  themselves  unworthy." 
David  says  this  "  worked  wonders."  He  had  no  spies  in 
schoolroom  or  grounds.  He  trusted  his  boys  in  a  frank, 
unconventional  way,  and  they  proved  themselves  worthy 
of  trust.  In  such  an  atmosphere  a  boy  grows  to  be  re- 
liable. He  does  not  need  to  be  hypocritical  or  false. 
"  The  boys  all  became  warmly  attached  to  the  school — I 
am  sure  I  did  for  one,  and  I  never  knew,  in  all  my  time, 
of  any  other  boy  being  otherwise — and  learned  with  a 
good  will,  desiring  to  do  it  credit." 

They  had  independent  self-activity.  "  We  had  plenty 
of  liberty."  Without  this  no  child  can  reach  his  best 
growth.  The  boys  did  not  abuse  their  privilege.  They 
respected  themselves  more  because  they  had  liberty.  "  As 
I  remember,  we  were  well  spoken  of  in  the  town,  and 
rarely  did  any  disgrace,  by  our  appearance  or  manner,  to 
the  reputation  of  Doctor  Strong  and  Doctor  Strong's 
boys." 

The  community  ideal  was  wrought  into  the  lives  of  the 
boys  by  their  experience  in  this  model  school.  "  We  all 
felt  that  we  had  a  part  in  the  management  of  the  place, 
and  in  sustaining  its  character  and  dignity."  The  highest 
work  of  schools,  colleges,  and  universities  is  to  fill  the  lives 
of  men  and  women  with  the  apperceptive  centres  of  the 
community  ideal.  Christian  community  can  not  be  made 
clear  by  books  or  teaching  or  sermons  unless  its  founda- 
tions are  laid  by  experience,  by  "  sharing  in  the  manage- 
ment "  of  the  conditions  of  the  life  of  the  boy,  or  girl,  or 
student.  Froebel  pleaded  for  a  college  and  university  edu- 
cation in  which  students  should  "  share  in  the  manage- 
ment."   Dickens  applied  this  high  ideal. 


226  DICKENS  AS  AN  EDUCATOR. 

There  is  another  most  important  element  in  Doctor 
Strong's  influence.  He  was  not  "  a  human  barrel  organ," 
like  Mr.  Feeder,  "  playing  a  little  list  of  Greek  and  Latin 
tunes  over  and  over  again  without  any  variation."  He 
was  an  original  investigator.  He  was  preparing  a  dic- 
tionary of  Greek  roots.  He  was  not  merely  an  accumu- 
lator of  knowledge  as  it  had  been  prepared  by  some  one 
else.  He  was  not  a  mere  canal  through  which  knowledge 
slowly  flowed  through  artificial  channels,  nor  a  marsh  in 
which  knowledge  had  become  confused  and  stagnant,  nor 
a  dead  sea  into  which  knowledge  flowed,  but  from  which 
j  there  was  no  outlet.  He  was  a  fresh  fountain  from  which 
/  knowledge  came  clear  and  pure.  So  the  boys  gained 
knowledge  readily  from  him,  but,  far  beyond  knowledge, 
they  learned  incidentally  the  habit  of  work,  and  were 
filled  with  the  desire  to  add  to  the  store  of  knowledge  as  a 
basis  for  the  progressive  evolution  of  humanity. 

What  a  farce  it  is  to  say  that  Dickens  was  not  con- 
scious of  the  pedagogic  value  of  his  work.  He  had  great 
facility  in  learning,  but  he  was  also  a  hard  student.  No 
one  could  have  written  so  much  and  so  wisely  about  edu- 
cation unless  he  had  studied  carefully  the  thought  of  the 
most  advanced  educators. 

David's  aunt  had  the  wisdom  to  try  to  develop  in  him 
the  characteristics  of  excellence  that  were  lacking  in  his 
parents.  This  is  a  thought  that  is  slowly  making  its  way 
in  the  minds  of  educators. 

"  But  what  I  want  you  to  be,  Trot,"  resumed  my  aunt 
— "  I  don't  mean  physically,  but  morally;  you  are  very 
well  physically — is  a  firm  fellow.  A  fine  firm  fellow,  with 
a  will  of  your  own.  With  resolution,"  said  my  aunt,  shak- 
ing her  cap  at  me,  and  clinching  her  hand.  *'  With  deter- 
mination. With  character.  Trot — with  strength  of  char- 
acter that  is  not  to  be  influenced,  except  on  good  reason, 
by  anybody,  or  by  anything.  That's  what  I  want  you  to 
be.  That's  what  your  father  and  mother  might  both  have 
been.  Heaven  knows,  and  been  the  better  for  it." 

I  intimated  that  I  hoped  I  should  be  what  she  described. 

"  That  you  may  begin,  in  a  small  way,  to  have  a  re- 
liance upon  yourself,  and  to  act  for  yourself,"  said  my 
aunt,  "  I  shall  send  you  upon  your  trip  alone." 


GOOD   TRAINING.  227 

In  pursuance  of  my  aunt's  kind  scheme,  I  was  shortly 
afterward  fitted  out  \\  ith  a  handsome  jjurse  of  money  and 
a  portmanteau,  and  tenderly  dismissed  upon  my  exjjedi- 
tion.  At  parting,  my  aunt  gave  me  some  good  advice  and 
a  good  many  kisses;  and  said  that  as  her  object  was  that 
I  should  look  about  me,  and  should  think  a  little,  she 
^^ould  recommend  me  to  stay  a  few  days  in  London,  if  I 
liked  it,  either  on  my  way  down  into  Sulfolk,  or  in  coming 
back.  In  a  word,  I  was  at  liberty  to  do  as  I  would  for 
three  weeks  or  a  month;  and  no  other  conditions  were 
imposed  upon  my  freedom  than  the  before-mentioned 
thinking  and  looking  about  me,  and  a  pledge  to  write  three 
times  a  week  and  faithfully  report  myself. 

Betsy  Trotwood  may  safely  be  taken  as  a  model  in 
dealing  with  boys  during  the  adolescent  period,  and  with 
young  men  just  about  to  start  in  the  real  work  of  life. 

Dickens  puts  into  the  words  of  David  Copperfield  a 
statement  of  the  elements  of  character  which  he  regarded 
as  most  essential  to  success  in  life,  and  which  he  would 
take  pains  to  develop  by  the  training  in  homes  and  schools. 

I  will  only  add  to  what  I  have  already  written  of  my 
perseverance  at  this  time  of  my  life,  and  of  a  patient  and 
continuous  energy  which  then  began  to  be  matured  within 
me,  and  which  I  kno\v  to  be  the  strong  part  of  my  char- 
acter, if  it  have  any  strength  at  all,  that  there,  on  looking 
back,  I  find  the  source  of  my  success.  I  have  been  very 
fortunate  in  worldly  matters;  many  men  have  worked 
much  harder,  and  not  succeeded  half  so  well;  but  I  never 
could  have  done  what  I  have  done  without  the  habits  of 
punctuality,  order,  and  diligence,  without  the  determina- 
tion to  concentrate  myself  on  one  object  at  a  time,  no  mat- 
ter how  quickly  its  successor  should  come  upon  its  heels, 
which  I  then  formed.  My  meaning  simply  is,  that  what- 
ever I  have  tried  to  do  in  life,  I  have  tried  with  all  my 
heart  to  do  well;  that  whatever  I  have  devoted  myself  to, 
I  have  devoted  myself  to  completely;  that,  in  great  aims 
and  in  small,  I  have  always  been  thoroughly  in  earnest. 
I  have  never  believed  it  possible  that  any  natural  or  im- 
proved ability  can  claim  immunity  from  the  companion- 
ship of  the  steady,  plain,  hard-working  qualities,  and  hope 
to  gain  its  end.  There  is  no  such  thing  as  such  fulfilment 
on   this   earth.      Some  happy   talent,   and    some   fortunate 


228  DICKENS  AS  AN  EDUCATOR. 

opportunity,  may  form  the  two  sides  of  the  ladder  on 
which  some  men  mount,  but  the  rounds  of  that  ladder 
must  be  made  of  stuff  to  stand  wear  and  tear;  and  there 
is  no  substitute  for  thoroughgoing,  ardent,  and  sincere 
earnestness.  Never  to  put  one  hand  to  anything  on  which 
I  could  throw  my  whole  self  and  never  to  affect  deprecia- 
tion of  my  work,  whatever  it  was,  1  find,  now,  to  have 
been  my  golden  rules. 

Bleak  House,  which  is  so  rich  in  illustrations  of  bad 
training,  contains  little  direct  teaching  regarding  the 
proper  training  of  children. 

The  value  of  a  doll  in  the  training  of  a  girl  is  shown 
in  Esther's  early  experience.  The  doll  had  a  real  personal 
relationship  to  her.  She  made  it  her  confidant,  and  in 
various  ways  gave  it  a  distinct  personal  standing.  She 
could  pour  out  to  it  the  joys  and  sorrows  of  her  heart 
more  fully  than  to  any  real  person.  The  doll  was  an  out- 
let for  the  pent-up  emotions  that  were  checked  in  their 
flow  by  the  adults  with  whom  she  was  associated.  A 
doll  is  more  than  a  mere  plaything  to  a  child;  or  perhaps 
it  would  be  more  exact  to  say  play  with  a  doll  means 
much  more  than  most  people  believe.  Dickens  was  able 
to  sympathize  with  even  a  little  girl. 

Esther  says : 

I  can  remember,  when  I  was  a  very  little  girl  indeed, 
I  used  to  say  to  my  doll,  when  we  were  alone  together, 
"  Now,  Dolly,  I  am  not  clever,  you  know  very  well,  and 
you  must  be  patient  with  me,  like  a  dear!  "  And  so  she 
used  to  sit  propped  up  in  a  great  armchair,  with  her 
beautiful  complexion  and  rosy  lips,  staring  at  me — or  not 
so  much  at  me,  I  think,  as  at  nothing — while  I  busily 
stitched  away,  and  told  her  every  one  of  my  secrets. 

My  dear  old  doll!  I  was  such  a  shy  little  thing  that 
I  seldom  dared  to  open  my  lips,  and  never  dared  to  open 
my  heart,  to  anybody  else.  It  almost  makes  me  cry  to 
think  w^hat  a  relief  it  used  to  be  to  me,  when  I  came  home 
from  school  of  a  day,  to  run  upstairs  to  my  room,  and  say 
"  Oh  you  dear  faithful  Dolly,  I  knew  you  would  be  ex- 
pecting me!  "  and  then  to  sit  down  on  the  floor,  leaning 
on  the  elbow  of  her  great  chair,  and  tell  her  all  I  had 
noticed  since  we  parted.  I  had  always  rather  a  noticing 
way — not  a  quick  way,  oh,  no! — a  silent  way  of  noticing 


GOOD  TRAINING.  229 

what  passed  before  me,  and  thinking  I  should  like  to 
understand  it  better.  I  have  not  by  any  means  a  quick 
understanding.  When  I  love  a  person  very  tenderly  in- 
deed, it  seems  to  brighten. 

When  on  her  lonely  birthday  she  had  been  told  by  her 
godmother  that  a  shadow  hung  over  her  life  she  says: 

I  went  up  to  my  room,  and  crept  to  bed,  and  laid  my 
doll's  cheek  against  mine  wet  with  tears;  and  holding 
that  solitary  friend  upon  my  bosom  cried  myself  to  sleep. 

Dear,  dear,  to  think  how  much  time  we  passed  alone 
together  afterward,  and  how  often  I  repeated  to  the  doll 
the  story  of  my  birthday,  and  confided  to  her  that  I  would 
try,  as  hard  as  ever  I  could,  to  repair  the  fault  I  had  been 
born  with  (of  which  I  confessedly  felt  guilty  and  yet 
innocent),  and  would  strive  as  I  grew  up  to  be  industrious, 
contented,  and  kind-hearted,  and  to  do  some  good  to  some 
one,  and  win  some  love  to  myself  if  I  could. 

Mr.  Jarndyce  emphasized  the  opinion  of  David  Cop- 
perfield  when  he  gave  advice  to  Richard  Carstone: 

"  Trust  in  nothing  but  in  Providence  and  your  o"v^ti 
efforts.  Never  separate  the  two,  like  the  heathen  wagoner. 
Constancy  in  love  is  a  good  thing;  but  it  means  nothing, 
and  is  nothing,  without  constancy  in  every  kind  of  effort. 
If  you  had  the  abilities  of  all  the  great  men,  past  and 
present,  you  could  do  nothing  well  without  sincerely 
meaning  it  and  setting  about  it.  If  you  entertain  the 
supposition  that  any  real  success,  in  great  things  or  in 
small,  ever  was  or  could  be,  ever  will  or  can  be,  wrested 
from  fortune  by  fits  and  starts,  leave  that  wrong  idea 
here." 

Mr.  George  gave  Woolwich  Bagnet  kindly  counsel  re- 
garding his  duty  to  his  mother : 

"  The  time  will  come,  my  boy,"  pursues  the  trooper, 
"  when  this  hair  of  your  mother's  will  be  gray,  and  this 
forehead  all  crossed  and  recrossed  with  wrinkles — and  a 
fine  old  lady  she'll  be  then.  Take  care,  while  you  are 
*young,  that  you  can  think  in  those  days,  '  I  never  whitened 
a  hair  of  her  dear  head — /  never  marked  a  sorrowful  line 
in  her  face!  '  For  of  all  the  many  things  that  you  can 
think  of  when  you  are  a  man,  you  had  better  have  that  by 
you,  Woolwich!  " 
16 


230  DICKENS  AS  AN  EDUCATOR. 

Mr.  Meagles  in  Little  Dorrit,  good,  kind  Mr.  Meagles, 
explained  why  Little  Dorrit,  amid  all  her  trials  and  all 
her  difficulties,  had  grown  to  be  so  true  a  woman,  loved 
by  so  many  people. 

If  she  had  constantly  thought  of  herself,  and  settled 
with  herself  that  everybody  visited  this  place  upon  her, 
turned  it  against  her,  and  cast  it  at  her,  she  would  have 
led  an  irritable  and  probably  a  useless  existence.  Yet  I 
have  heard  tell,  Tattycoram,  that  her  young  life  has  been 
one  of  active  resignation,  goodness,  and  noble  service. 
Shall  I  tell  you  what  I  consider  those  eyes  of  hers  that 
were  here  just  now,  to  have  always  looked  at,  to  get  that 
expression? 

"  Yes,  if  you  please,  sir." 

"  Duty,  Tattycoram.  Begin  it  early,  and  do  it  well; 
and  there  is  no  antecedent  to  it,  in  any  origin  or  station, 
that  will  tell  against  us  with  the  Almighty,  or  with  our- 
selves." 

Although  Mr.  Pocket  was  not  able  to  manage  his  own 
household  and  family,  chiefly  owing  to  the  hopeless  in- 
competence of  Mrs.  Pocket,  he  was  an  excellent  teacher, 
and  knew  how  to  treat  his  pupils.  Pip  found  him  a  most 
satisfactory  guide. 

He  advised  my  attending  certain  places  in  London 
for  the  acquisition  of  such  mere  rudiments  as  I  wanted, 
and  my  investing  him  with  the  functions  of  explainer  and 
director  of  all  my  studies.  He  hoped  that  with  intelligent 
assistance  I  should  meet  with  little  to  discourage  me, 
and  should  soon  be  able  to  dispense  with  any  aid  but  his. 
Through  his  waj^  of  saying  this,  and  much  more  to  simi- 
lar purpose,  he  placed  himself  on  confidential  terms  with 
me  in  an  admirable  manner:  and  I  may  state  at  once  that 
he  was  always  so  zealous  and  honourable  in  fulfilling  his 
compact  with  me  that  he  made  me  zealous  and  honour- 
able in  fulfilling  mine  with  him.  If  he  had  shown  indiffer- 
ence as  a  master,  I  had  no  doubt  I  should  have  returned 
the  compliment  as  a  pupil;  he  gave  me  no  such  excuse, 
and  each  of  us  did  the  other  justice. 

In  Our  Mutual  Friend  Betty  Higden  and  Mrs.  Boffin 
are  given  as  true  types  of  the  proper  spirit  of  adulthood 
toward  childhood.     Betty,  poor  as  she  was,  wept  at  the 


GOOD  TRAINING.  231 

thought  of  parting  from  Johnny,  and  Mrs.  Boffin  said  to 
her: 

"  If  you  trust  the  dear  child  to  me  he  shall  have  the 
best  of  homes,  the  best  of  care,  the  best  of  education,  the 
best  of  friends.  Please  God,  I  will  be  a  true  good  mother 
to  him!  " 

Jemmy  Lirriper  had  an  ideal  training  in  many  ways. 
He  had  freedom  and  love,  and  his  imagination  and  indi- 
viduality were  developed  as  fully  as  Mrs.  Lirriper  and  the 
Major  could  secure  these  desirable  results.  His  boyish 
personality  received  respectful  consideration.  The  Ma- 
jor's method  of  revealing  mathematical  conceptions  and 
processes,  while  it  did  not  fully  reveal  Froebel's  processes 
in  reaching  the  same  results  (even  the  great  mathemati- 
cians have  been  slow  in  doing  that),  was  much  in  advance 
of  the  pedagogy  of  his  time,  and  it  shows  the  spirit  in 
which  Dickens  would  have  the  child  treated,  and  this  is 
much  more  important  than  mathematics. 

Mrs.  Lirriper  tells  the  story: 

My  dear,  the  system  upon  which  the  Major  com- 
menced, and,  as  I  may  say,  perfected  Jemmy's  learning 
when  he  was  so  small  that  if  the  dear  was  on  the  other 
side  of  the  table  you  had  to  look  under  it  instead  of  over 
it  to  see  him  with  his  mother's  own  bright  hair  in  beauti- 
ful curls,  is  a  thing  that  ought  to  be  known  to  the  Throne 
and  Lords  and  Commons,  and  then  might  obtain  some 
promotion  for  the  Major,  which  he  well  deserves,  and 
would  be  none  the  worse  for  (speaking  between  friends, 
L.  S.  D-ically).  When  the  Major  first  undertook  his  learn- 
ing he  says  to  me: 

"  I'm  going.  Madam,"  he  says,  "  to  make  our  child  a 
Calculating  Boy." 

"  Major,"  I  says,  "  you  terrify  me,  and  may  do  the  pet  a 
permanent  injury  you  would  never  forgive  yourself." 

"  Madam,"  says  the  Major,  "  I  would  regret  if  this  fine 
mind  was  not  early  cultivated.  But  mark  me.  Madam," 
says  the  Major,  holding  up  his  forefinger,  "  cultivated  on 
a  principle  that  will  make  it  a  delight." 

"  Major,"  I  says,  "  I  will  be  candid  with  you  and  tell 
you  openly  that  if  ever  I  find  the  dear  child  fall  off  in  his 
appetite  I  shall  know  it  is  his  calculations,  and  shall  put 


232  DICKENS  AS  AN  EDUCATOR. 

a  stop  to  them  at  two  minutes'  notice.  Or  if  I  find  them 
mounting  to  his  head,"  1  says,  "  or  striking  anyways  cold 
to  his  stomach  or  leading  to  anything  approaching  flabbi- 
ness  in  his  legs,  the  result  will  be  the  same,  but,  Major,  you 
are  a  clever  man  and  have  seen  much,  and  you  love  the 
child  and  are  his  own  godfather,  and  if  you  feel  a  confi- 
dence in  trying,  try." 

"  Spoken,  Madam,"  saj's  the  Major,  "  like  Emma  Lirri- 
per.  All  I  have  to  ask,  Madam,  is  that  you  will  leave 
my  godson  and  mj^self  to  make  a  week  or  two's  prepara- 
tions for  surprising  you,  and  that  you  will  give  leave  to 
have  up  and  down  any  small  articles  not  actually  in  use 
that  I  may  require  from  the  kitchen." 

"  From  the  kitchen.  Major!  "  I  says,  half  feeling  as  if 
he  had  a  mind  to  cook  the  child. 

"  From  the  kitchen,"  sajs  the  Major,  and  smiles  and 
swells,  and  at  the  same  time  looks  taller. 

So  I  passed  my  word,  and  the  Major  and  the  dear  boy 
were  shut  up  together  for  half  an  hour  at  a  time  through 
a  certain  while,  and  never  could  I  hear  anything  going  on 
betwixt  them  but  talking  and  laughing  and  Jemmy  clap- 
ping his  hands  and  screaming  out  numbers,  so  I  says  to 
myself  "  It  has  not  harmed  him  yet,"  nor  could  I,  on  ex- 
amining the  dear  find  any  signs  of  it  anywhere  about 
him,  which  was  likewise  a  great  relief.  At  last  one  day 
Jemmy  brings  me  a  card  in  joke  in  the  Major's  neat  writ- 
ing "  The  Messrs^  Jemmy  Jackman,"  for  we  had  given 
him  the  Major's  other  name  too,  "  request  the  honour  of 
Mrs.  Lirriper's  company  at  the  Jackman  Institution  in 
the  front  parlour  this  evening  at  five,  military  time,  to 
witness  a  few  slight  feats  of  elementary  arithmetic."  And, 
if  you'll  believe  me,  there  in  the  front  parlour  at  five 
punctually  to  the  moment  was  the  Major  behind  the  Pem- 
broke table  with  both  leaves  up  and  a  lot  of  things  from 
the  kitchen  tidily  set  out  on  old  newspapers  spread  atop 
of  it,  and  there  was  the  Mite  stood  up  on  a  chair,  with  his 
rosy  cheeks  flushing  and  his  eyes  sparkling  clusters  of 
diamonds. 

"  Now,  Gran,"  says  he,  "  oo  tit  down  and  don't  oo 
touch  ler  poople  " — for  he  saw  with  every  one  of  those 
diamonds  of  his  that  I  was  going  to  give  him  a  squeeze. 

"  Very  well,  sir,"  I  says.  "  I  am  obedient  in  this  good 
company,  I  am  sure."  And  I  sits  down  in  the  easy-chair 
that  was  put  for  me,  shaking  my  sides. 


GOOD  TRAINING.  233 

But  picture  my  admiration  when  the  Major,  g'oing  on 
almost  as  quick  as  if  he  was  conjuring,  sets  out  all  the 
articles  he  names,  and  says,  "  Three  saucepans,  an  Italian 
iron,  a  hand  bell,  a  toasting  fork,  a  nutmeg  grater,  four 
potlids,  a  spice  box,  two  egg  cups,  and  a  chopping  board — 
how  many?  "  and  when  that  Mite  instantly  cries  "  Tif- 
teen,  tut  down  tive  and  carry  ler  'topping  board."  and  then 
claps  his  hands,  draws  up  his  legs,  and  dances  on  his 
chair! 

My  dear,  with  the  same  astonishing  ease  and  correct- 
ness, him  and  the  Major  added  up  the  tables,  chairs,  and 
sofy,  the  picters,  fender  and  fire  irons,  their  own  selves, 
me  and  the  cat,  and  the  eyes  in  Miss  Wozenham's  head, 
and  whenever  the  sum  was  done  Young  Roses  and  Dia- 
monds claps  his  hands  and  draws  up  his  legs  and  dances 
on  his  chair. 

The  pride  of  the  Major!  ("Here's  a  mind,  Ma'am!  " 
he  says  to  me  behind  his  hand.) 

Then  he  says  aloud,  "  We  now  come  to  the  next  ele- 
mentary rule — which  is  called " 

"Umtraction!  "  cries  Jemmy. 

"  Right,"  says  the  Major.  "  We  have  here  a  toasting 
fork,  a  potato  in  its  natural  state,  two  potlids,  one  egg- 
cup,  a  wooden  spoon,  and  two  skewers,  from  vrhich  it  is 
necessarj^  for  commercial  purposes,  to  subtract  a  sprat 
gridiron,  a  small  pickle  jar,  two  lemons,  one  pepper  castor, 
a  black-beetle  trap,  and  a  knob  of  the  dresser  drawer — 
what  remains?  " 

"  Toatin  fork!  "  cries  Jemmy. 

"  In  numbers,  how  many?  "  says  the  Major. 

"  One!  "  cries  Jemmy. 

("  Here's  a  boy.  Ma'am!  "  says  the  Major  to  me,  behind 
his  hand.) 

"  We  now  approach  the  next  elementary  rule — which  is 
entitled " 

"  Tickleication,"  cries  Jemmy. 

"  Correct,"  says  the  ^lajor. 

But,  my  dear,  to  relate  to  you  in  detail  the  way  in 
which  they  multiplied  fourteen  sticks  of  firewood  by  two 
bits  of  ginger  and  a  larding  needle,  or  divided  pretty  well 
everything  else  there  was  on  the  table  by  the  heater  of 
the  Italian  iron  and  a  chamber  candlestick,  and  got  a 
lemon  over,  would  make  my  head  spin  round  and  round 
and  round,  as  it  did  at  the  time.     So  I  says,  "  If  you'll 


234  DICKENS  AS  AN  EDUCATOR. 

excuse  my  addressing  the  chair,  Professor  Jackman,  I 
think  the  period  of  the  lecture  has  now  arrived  when  it 
becomes  necessary  that  I  should  take  a  good  hug  of  this 
young  scholar."  Upon  which  Jemmy  calls  out  from  his 
station  on  the  chair,  "  Gran,  oo  open  oor  arms  and  me'll 
make  a  'pring  into  'em."  So  I  opened  my  arms  to  him,  as 
I  had  opened  my  sorrowful  heart  when  his  poor  young 
mother  lay  a-dying,  and  he  had  his  jump  and  we  had  a 
good  long  hug  together,  and  the  Major,  prouder  than  any 
peacock,  says  to  me  behind  his  hand,  "  You  need  not  let 
him  know  it.  Madam  "  (which  I  certainly  need  not,  for 
the  Major  was  quite  audible),  "  but  he  is  a  boy!  " 

Doctor  Marigold's  training  of  the  little  deaf-mute 
girl  and  "  Old  Cheeseman's "  treatment  of  children  are 
revelations  of  the  mature  ideals  of  Dickens  regarding  the 
proper  attitude  of  adulthood  toward  childhood. 


CHAPTER   XIII. 

COMMUNITY. 

While  the  opinions  of  Dickens  on  the  subject  of  com- 
munity may  not  seem  very  advanced  to  some  of  the  most 
progressive  men  and  women  of  the  present,  they  were 
much  ahead  of  his  own  time,  and  they  are  beyond  the  prac- 
tice of  our  time. 

I  have  had  my  share  of  sorrows — more  than  the  com- 
mon lot,  perhaps,  but  I  have  borne  them  ill.  I  have  broken 
where  I  should  have  bent;  and  have  mused  and  brooded, 
when  my  spirit  should  have  mixed  with  all  God's  great 
creation.  The  men  who  learn  endurance  are  they  wha 
call  the  whole  world  brother.  I  have  turned  from  the 
world,  and  I  pay  the  penalty. 

Thus  spoke  Mr.  Haredale  to  Edward  Chester,  in  Bar- 
naby  Rudge. 

Xo  one  who  has  lived  since  the  time  of  Dickens  could 
write  a  more  striking  statement  of  the  responsibility  of 
every  man  for  his  brother,  and  of  the  terrific  consequences 
of  neglect  of  the  duties  of  brotherhood  both  to  him  who 
is  neglected  and  to  him  who  neglects,  than  Dickens  wrote 
in  Dombey  and  Son.  There  is  no  phase  of  sociology  that 
has  stepped  beyond  the  position  taken  by  Dickens  in  the 
following  selection: 

Was  Mr.  Dombey's  master  vice,  that  ruled  him  so  in- 
exorably, an  unnatural  characteristic?  It  might  be  worth 
while,  sometimes  to  inquire  what  Xature  is,  and  bow  men 
work  to  change  her,  and  whether,  in  the  enforced  distor- 
tions so  produced,  it  is  not  natural  to  be  unnatural.  Coop 
any  son  or  daughter  of  our  mighty  mother  within  narrow 
range,  and  bind  the  prisoner  to  one  idea,  and  foster  it  by 
servile  worship  of  it  on  the  part  of  the  few  timid  or  de- 

235 


236  DICKENS  AS  AN  EDUCATOR. 

signing  people  standing  round,  and  what  is  Nature  to 
the  willing  captive  who  has  never  risen  up  upon  the  wings 
of  a  free  mind — drooping  and  useless  soon — to  see  her  in 
her  comprehensive  truth! 

Alas!  are  there  so  few  things  in  the  world  about  us 
most  unnatural,  and  yet  most  natural  in  being  so!  Hear 
the  magistrate  or  judge  admonish  the  unnatural  outcast 
of  society;  unnatural  in  brutal  habits,  unnatural  in  want 
of  decency,  unnatural  in  losing  and  confounding  all  dis- 
tinctions between  good  and  evil;  unnatural  in  ignorance, 
in  vice,  in  recklessness,  in  contumacy,  in  mind,  in  looks,  in 
everything.  But  follow  the  good  clergyman  or  doctor, 
who,  with  his  life  imperilled  at  every  breath  he  draws,  goes 
down  into  their  dens,  lying  within  the  echoes  of  our  car- 
riage wheels  and  daily  tread  upon  the  pavement  stones. 
Look  round  upon  the  world  of  odious  sights — millions  of 
immortal  creatures  have  no  other  world  on  earth — at  the 
lightest  mention  of  which  humanity  revolts,  and  dainty 
delicacy  living  in  the  next  street,  stops  her  ears,  and  lispg, 
"I  don't  believe  it!  "  Breathe  the  polluted  air,  foul  with 
every  impurity  that  is  poisonous  to  health  and  life;  and 
have  every  sense  conferred  upon  our  race  for  its  delight 
and  happiness,  offended,  sickened,  and  disgusted,  and  made 
a  channel  by  which  misery  and  death  alone  can  enter. 
Vainly  attempt  to  think  of  any  simple  plant,  or  flower,  or 
wholesome  weed  that,  set  in  this  fetid  bed,  could  have  its 
natural  growth  or  put  its  little  leaves  off  to  the  sun  as  God 
designed  it.  And  then,  calling  up  some  ghastly  child, 
with  stunted  form  and  wicked  face,  hold  forth  on  its  un- 
natural sinfulness,  and  lament  its  being  so  early  far  away 
from  heaven — but  think  a  little  of  its  having  been  con- 
ceived, and  born  and  bred,  in  hell! 

Those  who  study  the  physical  sciences,  and  bring 
them  to  bear  upon  the  health  of  man,  tell  us  that  if  the 
noxious  particles  that  rise  from  vitiated  air  were  palpable 
to  the  sight,  we  should  see  them  lowering  in  a  dense  black 
cloud  above  such  haunts,  and  rolling  slowly  on  to  corrupt 
the  better  portions  of  a  town.  But  if  the  moral  pestilence 
that  rises  with  them,  and  in  the  eternal  laws  of  outraged 
nature,  is  inseparable  from  them,  could  be  made  discern- 
ible too,  how  terrible  the  revelation!  Then  should  we  see 
depravity,  impiety,  drunkenness,  theft,  murder,  and  a  long 
train  of  nameless  sins  against  the  natural  affections  and 
repulsions    of    mankind,    overhanging    the    devoted    spots, 


COMMUNITY.  237 

and  creeping-  on,  to  blight  the  innocent  and  spread  con- 
tagion among  the  pure.  Then  should  we  see  how  the 
same  poisoned  fountains  that  flow  into  our  hospitals  and 
lazar  houses,  inundate  the  jails,  and  make  the  convict  ships 
swim  deep,  and  roll  across  the  seas,  and  overrun  vast  con- 
tinents with  crime.  Then  should  we  stand  appalled  to 
know  that  where  we  generate  disease  to  strike  our  chil- 
dren down  and  entail  itself  on  unborn  generations,  there 
also  we  breed,  by  the  same  certain  process,  infancy  that 
knows  no  innocence,  youth  without  modesty  or  shame, 
maturity  that  is  mature  in  nothing  but  in  suffering  and 
guilt,  blasted  old  age  that  is  a  scandal  on  the  form  we 
bear.  Unnatural  humanity!  \Yhen  we  shall  gather 
grapes  from  thorns,  and  figs  from  thistles;  when  fields  of 
grain  shall  spring  up  from  the  offal  in  the  byways  of  our 
wicked  cities,  and  roses  bloom  in  the  fat  churchyards  that 
they  cherish;  then  we  may  look  for  natural  humanity  and 
find  it  growing  from  such  seed. 

Oh,  for  a  good  spirit  who  would  take  the  housetops  off, 
with  a  more  potent  and  benignant  hand  than  the  lame 
demon  in  the  tale,  and  show  a  Christian  people  what  dark 
shapes  issue  from  amidst  their  homes,  to  swell  the  retinue 
of  the  destroying  angel  as  he  moves  forth  among  them! 
For  only  one  night's  view  of  the  pale  phantoms  rising 
from  the  scenes  of  our  too  long  neglect;  and  from  the 
thick  and  sullen  air  where  vice  and  fever  propagate  to- 
gether, raining  the  tremendous  and  social  retributions 
which  are  ever  pouring  down,  and  ever  coming  thicker! 
Bright  and  blessed  the  morning  that  should  rise  on  such 
a  night;  for  men,  delayed  no  more  by  stumbling-blocks 
of  their  own  making,  which  are  but  specks  of  dust  upon 
the  path  between  them  and  eternity,  would  then  apply 
themselves,  like  creatures  of  one  common  origin,  owing 
one  duty  to  the  father  of  one  family,  and  tending  to  one 
common  end  to  make  the  world  a  better  place! 

Xot  the  less  bright  and  blessed  would  that  daj^  be  for 
rousing  some  who  never  have  looked  out  upon  the  world 
of  human  life  around  them  to  a  knowledge  of  their  own 
relation  to  it,  and  for  making  them  acquainted  with  a 
perversion  of  Xature  in  their  own  contracted  sympathies 
and  estimates;  as  great  and  yet  as  natural  in  its  develop- 
ment when  once  begun  as  the  lowest  degradation  known. 

This  selection  is  worth  rereading.  The  most  advanced 
thinkers  will  understand  it  best. 


238  DICKENS  AS  AN   EDUCATOR. 

Dickens  showed  that  he  understood  clearly  that  a  man 
becomes  marred  and  degraded  by  shutting  the  world  out 
of  his  heart,  even  though  the  reason  for  the  exclusion  may 
in  itself  be  good.  Love  is  the  highest  of  all  sentiments, 
and  Dickens  used  it  in  the  case  of  Mr.  Wickfield  to  show 
that  even  the  tender  love  he  had  for  his  dead  wife  became 
a  source  of  evil  to  him,  when  it  made  him  cease  to  think 
of  the  sorrows  of  his  fellows,  and  only  of  his  own  afflic- 
tion. Either  in  joy  or  sorrow  the  benefit  to  the  indi- 
vidual results  from  a  deepening  of  his  consciousness  of 
unity  with  the  whole  of  humanity.  Mr.  Wickfield  said 
to  David: 

"  Weak  indulgence  has  ruined  me.  Indulgence  in  re- 
membrance and  indulgence  in  lorgetfulness.  My  natural 
grief  for  my  child's  mother  turned  to  disease;  my  natural 
love  for  my  child  turned  to  disease.  I  have  infected  every- 
thing I  touched.  I  have  brought  misery  on  v^hat  I  dearly 
love,  I  know — Ton  know!  I  thought  it  possible  that  I 
could  truly  love  one  creature  in  the  world,  and  not  love 
the  rest;  I  thought  it  possible  that  I  could  truly  mourn 
for  one  creature  gone  out  of  the  world,  and  not  have  some 
part  in  the  grief  of  all  who  mourned.  Thus  the  lessons 
of  my  life  have  been  perverted!  I  have  preyed  on  my  own 
morbid  coward  heart,  and  it  has  preyed  on  me.  Sordid  in 
my  grief,  sordid  in  my  love,  sordid  in  my  miserable  escape 
from  the  darker  side  of  both,  oh,  see  the  ruin  I  am,  and 
hate  me,  shun  me!  " 

In  Tom  Tiddler's  Ground  Dickens  attacks  the  ideal 
that  there  may  be  merit  in  seclusion.  Mr.  Traveller  visits 
the  hermit  who  had  become  famous,  and  who  was  so  vain 
on  account  of  his  dirt  and  simplicity  of  living,  and  he 
tells  him  some  plain  truths  regarding  himself  and  the 
duty  of  man  to  his  fellow-men. 

"  Now,"  said  he,  "  that  a  man— even  behind  bars,  in  a 
blanket  and  a  skewer— should  tell  me  that  he  can  see  from 
day  to  day  any  orders  or  conditions  of  men,  women,  or 
children,  who  can  by  any  possibility  teach  him  that  it  is 
anything  but  the  miserablist  drivelling  for  a  human  crea- 
ture to  quarrel  with  his  social  nature— not  to  go  so  far  as 
to  say,  to  renounce  his  common  human  decency,  for  that 
is  an  extreme  case,  or  who  can  teach  him  that  he  can  in 


COMMUNITY.  239 

any  wise  separate  himself  from  his  kind  and  the  habits  of 
his  kind,  without  becoming  a  deteriorated  spectacle  calcu- 
lated to  g-ive  the  Devil  (and  perhaps  the  monkeys)  pleas- 
ure— is  something  wonderful!  " 

"  You  think  yourself  profoundly  w4se,"  said  the  Her- 
mit. 

"  Bah,"  returned  Mr.  Traveller,  "  there  is  little  wisdom 
in  knowing  that  every  man  must  be  up  and  doing,  and 
that  all  mankind  are  made  dependent  on  one  another. 

"  It  is  a  moral  impossibility,"  continued  Mr.  Traveller, 
"  that  any  son  or  daughter  of  Adam  can  stand  on  this 
ground  that  I  put  my  foot  on,  or  on  any  ground  that 
mortal  treads,  and  gainsay  the  healthy  tenure  on  which 
we  hold  our  existence." 

"  Which  is,"  sneered  the  Hermit,  "  according  to 
you " 

"  Which  is,"  returned  the  Traveller,  "  according  to 
Eternal  Providence,  that  we  must  arise  and  wash  our  faces 
and  do  our  gregarious  work  and  act  and  react  on  each 
other,  leaving  only  the  idiot  and  the  palsied  to  sit  blinking 
in  the  corner." 

Dickens  saves  Little  Emily  from  her  great  sorrow,  and 
lifts  the  load  of  "  shame  "  from  her  heart  by  giving  her 
the  opportunity  of  helping  to  care  for  others. 

But  theer  was  some  poor  folks  aboard  as  had  illness 
among  'em,  and  she  took  care  of  them;  and  theer  was  the 
children  in  our  company,  and  she  took  care  of  them;  and 
so  she  got  to  be  busy,  and  to  be  doing  good,  and  that 
helped  her. 

And  in  the  same  great  book  he  ridicules  the  misuse  of 
the  sacred  word  "  society  "  by  applying  it  to  the  sham  and 
mockery  of  all  that  should  be  truly  helpful  and  ennobling 
in  the  social  intercourse  of  mankind. 

Or  perhaps  this  is  the  Desert  of  Sahara!  for,  though 
Julia  has  a  stately  house,  and  mighty  company,  and  sump- 
tuous dinners  every  day,  I  see  no  green  growth  near  her; 
nothing  that  can  ever  come  to  fruit  or  flower.  What  Julia 
calls  "  society,"  I  see  among  it  Mr.  Jack  Maldon,  from  his 
Patent  Place,  sneering  at  the  hand  that  gave  it  to  him, 
and  speaking  to  me  of  the  Doctor,  as  "  so  charmingly 
antique." 


240  DICKENS  AS  AN  EDUCATOR. 

But  when  society  is  the  name  of  such  hollow  gentlemen 
and  ladies,  Julia,  and  when  its  breeding  is  professed  indif- 
ference to  everything  that  can  advance  or  can  retard  man- 
kind, I  think  we  must  have  lost  ourselves  in  the  same 
Desert  of  Sahara,  and  had  better  find  the  way  out. 

When  he  spoke  of  Little  Dorrit  as  "  inspired  "  he  pro- 
ceeded to  say : 

She  was  inspired  to  be  something  which  was  not 
what  the  rest  were,  and  to  be  that  something,  different 
and  laborious,  for  the  sake  of  the  rest.  Inspired?  Yes. 
Shall  we  speak  of  the  inspiration  of  a  poet  or  a  priest,  and 
not  of  the  heart  impelled  by  love  and  self-devotibn  to  the 
lowliest  work  in  the  lowliest  way  of  life! 

Dickens  had  reached  the  great  conception  that  the 
duty  of  every  individual  is  to  add  something  by  his  life 
to  the  general  good.  That  we  should  not  leave  the  world 
as  we  found  it;  that  our  work  is  not  done  well  if  we 
spend  our  lives  in  digging  among  the  richest  treasures  of 
the  past  and  revealing  them  unselfishly  to  our  fellow-men, 
but  that  each  should  make  some  existing  thing  or  condi- 
tion better,  or  reveal  some  new  thought  or  principle,  or 
plan,  or  process,  so  that  humanity  may  climb  more  easily 
and  more  certainly  from  the  mists  and  shadows  to  the 
higher  glory  of  the  clearer  light. 

Mr.  Doyce  had  made  an  invention,  but  had  met  with 
almost  insuperable  difficulties  in  getting  it  before  the 
people. 

"  It  is  much  to  be  regretted,"  said  Clennam,  "  that  you 
ever  turned  your  thoughts  that  way,  Mr.  Doyce." 

"  Triie,  sir,  true,  to  a  certain  extent.  But  what  is  a 
man  to  do?  If  he  has  the  misfortune  to  strike  out  some- 
thing serviceable  to  the  nation,  he  must  follow  where  it 
leads  him." 

"  Hadn't  he  better  let  it  go?  "  asked  Clennam. 

"  He  can't  do  it,"  said  Doyce,  shaking  his  head,  with  a 
thoughtful  smile.  "  It's  not  put  into  his  head  to  be  buried. 
It's  put  into  his  head  to  be  made  useful.  You  hold  your 
life  on  the  condition  that  to  the  last  you  shall  struggle 
hard  for  it.  Every  man  holds  a  discovery  on  the  same 
terms." 

"  That  is  to  say,"  said  Arthur,  with  a  growing  admira- 


COMMUNITY.  241 

tion  of  his  quiet  companion,  "  you  are  not  fully  discour- 
aged even  now?  " 

"  I  have  no  right  to  be,  if  I  am,"  returned  the  other. 
"  The  thing  is  as  true  as  it  ever  was." 

Throughout  his  writings  Dickens  vigorously  con- 
demns the  class  distinctions  that  separate  mankind  into 
sections,  and  thus  destroy  the  bond  of  unity  and  brother- 
hood that  should  exist  between  them. 

Miss  Monflathers,  in  Old  Curiosity  Shop,  drew  the  line 
very  definitely  between  genteel  children  and  the  children 
of  the  poor. 

Mr.  Dombey  pompously  consented  to  have  the  children 
of  the  poor  educated,  because  "  it  is  necessary  that  the 
inferior  classes  should  continue  to  be  taught  to  know  their 
position."  Fancy  using  education  to  prevent  the  unity 
of  men,  when  its  highest  function  should  be  the  revelation 
of  community  and  the  qualification  of  individuals  for  the 
functions  of  brotherhood. 

In  David  Copperfield  the  pathetic  side  of  the  evil  of 
class  distinctions  is  shown  by  the  appeals  of  Mr.  Peggotty 
to  Mrs.  Steerforth  that  she  would  consent  to  her  son's 
marriage  with  Little  Emily,  and  her  indignant  refusal  to 
allow  her  son  to  do  so. 

In  Bleak  House  Sir  Leicester  Dedlock  was  amazed  at 
the  audacity  of  Mr.  Rouncewell's  democratic  ideas,  and  his 
mind  was  filled  with  gloomy  forebodings  of  the  evil  that 
such  principles  as  those  held  by  Mr.  Rouncewell  would 
work  in  the  social  organization  as  planned  and  fixed  by 
the  Dedlock  class.     These  were  his  thoughts: 

From  the  village  school  of  Chesney  Wold,  intact  as  it 
is  this  minute,  to  the  whole  framework  of  society;  from 
the  whole  framew^ork  of  society,  to  the  aforesaid  frame- 
work receiving  tremendous  cracks  in  consequence  of  peo- 
ple (ironmasters,  lead  mistresses,  and  ^vhat  not)  not  mind- 
ing their  catechism,  and  getting  out  of  the  station  unto 
which  they  are  called — necessarily  and  forever,  according  to 
Sir  Leicester's  rapid  logic,  the  first  station  in  which  they 
happen  to  find  themselves;  and  from  that,  to  their  educating 
other  people  out  of  their  stations,  and  so  obliterating  the 
landmarks,  and  opening  the  flood  gates,  and  all  the  rest 
of  it;  this  is  the  svdft  progress  of  the  Dedlock  mind. 


242  DICKENS  AS  AN  EDUCATOR. 

In  American  Notes,  after  describing  at  length  the  ad- 
mirable co-operative  arrangements,  and  the  varied  means 
of  culture,  amusement,  and  refinement  enjoyed  by  the 
young  women  in  the  factories  at  Lowell,  Mass.,  he  says : 

The  large  class  of  readers,  startled  by  these  facts,  will 
exclaim  with  one  voice,  "  How  very  preposterous!  "  On 
my  deferentially  inquiring  why,  they  will  answer,  "  These 
things  are  above  their  station."  In  reply  to  that  objec- 
tion, I  would  beg  to  ask  what  their  station  is. 

It  is  their  station  to  work.  And  they  do  work.  They 
labour  in  these  mills,  upon  an  average,  twelve  hours  a  day, 
which  is  unquestionably  work.  And  pretty  tight  work 
too.  Perhaps  it  is  above  their  station  to  indulge  in  such 
amusements  on  any  terms.  Are  we  quite  sure  that  we  in 
England  have  not  formed  our  ideas  of  the  "  station  "  of 
working  people  from  accustoming  ourselves  to  the  contem- 
plation of  that  class  as  they  are,  and  not  as  they  might  be? 
I  think  that  if  we  examine  our  own  feelings,  we  shall  find 
that  the  pianos,  and  the  circulating  libraries,  and  even 
the  Lowell  Offering,  startle  us  with  their  novelty,  and 
not  by  their  bearing  upon  any  abstract  question  of  right 
or  wrong. 

For  myself,  I  know  no  station  in  which,  the  occupa- 
tion of  to-day  cheerfully  done  and  the  occupation  of  to- 
morrow cheerfully  looked  to,  any  one  of  these  pursuits 
is  not  most  humanizing  and  laudable.  I  know  no  station 
which  is  rendered  more  endurable  to  the  person  in  it,  or 
more  safe  to  the  person  out  of  it,  by  having  ignorance  for 
its  associate.  I  know  no  station  which  has  a  right  to 
monopolize  the  means  of  mutual  instruction,  improvement, 
and  rational  entertainment;  or  which  has  ever  continued 
to  be  a  station  very  long,  after  seeking  to  do  so. 

Walter  Wilding  planned  an  ideal  relationship  between 
employer  and  employed  in  No  Thoroughfare.  He  adver- 
tised for  a  housekeeper  so  that  he  "  might  sit  daily  at  the 
head  of  the  table  at  which  the  people  in  my  employment 
eat  together,  and  may  eat  of  the  same  roast  and  boiled, 
and  drink  of  the  same  beer,  and  one  and  all  form  a  kind  of 
family." 

He  planned,  too,  to  train  his  employees  to  sing 
"  Handel,  Mozart,  Haydn,  Kent,  Purcell,  Doctor  Ame, 
Greene,  Mendelssohn,  to  make  music  a  part  of  the  bond 


COMMUNITY.  24:3 

between  us.    We  will  form  a  Choir  in  some  quiet  church 
near  the  Corner." 

He  touched  the  true  chord  of  community  when  Joey 
Ladle  used  the  word  "  they."  Joey  asked,  when  Mr.  Wild- 
ing unfolded  his  plan: 

"  Is  all  to  live  in  the  house,  Young*  Master  Wilding? 
The  two  other  cellarmen,  the  three  porters,  the  two 
'prentices,  and  the  odd  men?  " 

"  Yes.     I  hope  we  shall  all  be  a  united  family,  Joey." 

"  Ah!  "  said  Joey.     "  I  hope  they  may  be." 

"  They?     Rather  say  we,  Joey." 

Not  many  employers  have  reached  the  ideals  of  Dick- 
ens yet. 


CHAPTER   XIV. 

NUTRITION   AS   A   FACTOR   IN   EDUCATION. 

The  influence  of  diet  in  the  development  not  only  of 
physical  power,  but  of  intellectual  and  spiritual  power 
also,  has  now  begun  to  attract  general  attention.  There 
is  no  longer  any  doubt  that  the  character  of  the  bones,  of 
the  muscles,  of  the  nerves,  and  of  the  brain  itself,  is  de- 
cided to  a  considerable  extent  by  the  food  that  is  eaten. 
There  is  no  longer  any  doubt  that  many  children  have 
been  urged  to  do  work  which  becomes  destructive  beyond 
the  fatigue  point  of  their  little  brains,  when  their  brains 
have  not  been  properly  nourished,  either  from  lack  of 
proper  food  or  of  properly  cooked  food,  or  from  eating 
too  much  or  too  little. 

The  deterioration  of  the  physical  system,  and  espe- 
cially the  deterioration  of  the  neurological  system,  is  one 
of  the  most  startling  subjects  within  the  range  of  view 
of  educators  and  psychologists.  One  of  the  most  at- 
tractive departments  of  child  study  is  that  which  inves- 
tigates the  means  of  deciding  from  external  manifesta- 
tions of  form,  proportion,  action,  voice,  and  attitude  the 
nature  and  condition  of  the  brain  and  neurological  sys- 
tem of  the  child.  When  this  discovery  has  been  made, 
however,  it  but  prepares  the  way  for  further  investiga- 
tion to  discover  in  what  way  abnormal  or  weak  systems 
may  be  helped  to  become  normal  and  strong. 

One  of  the  fundamental  things  to  be  done  by  scien- 
tists and  educators  is  to  discover  the  kinds  of  food  adapt- 
ed to  different  stages  of  the  child's  growth,  and  to  the 
varied  functions  of  study  and  work  required  of  him.  By 
proper  nutrition  and  by  proper  exercise  much  may  be 
done  to  increase  the  power  and  efficiency  of  the  body  and 
the  brain  and  the  rest  of  the  neurological  system. 
244 


^ 


NUTRITION  AS  A  FACTOH  IN  EDUCATION.    245 

Dickens  saw  the  need  of  attention  to  the  problems  of 
nutrition  very  clearly.  He  began  to  write  about  it  in 
Oliver  Twist. 

He  fijist  exposed  the  horrors  of  baby  farming,  with  - 
its  terrible  percentage  of  deaths,  resulting  almost  entire- 
ly from  the  villainous  indifference  to  the  diet  of  the 
children.  Children  yet  die  in  homes  from  similar  causes, 
or,  if  they  do  not  die,  they  go  through  life  weakened  and 
dwarfed. 

For  the  next  eight  or  ten  months  Oliver  was  the  victim 
of  a  systematic  course  of  treachery  and  deception.  He 
was  brought  up  by  hand.  The  hungry  and  destitute  situ-  _,  ^ 
ation  of  the  infant  orphan  was  duly  reported  by  the  work-  ; 
house  authorities  to  the  parish  authorities.  The  parish 
authorities  inquired  with  dignity'  of  the  workhouse  author- 
ities whether  there  was  no  female  then  domiciled  "  in  the 
house  "  who  was  in  a  situation  to  impart  to  Oliver  Twist 
the  consolation  and  nourishment  of  which  he  stood  in 
need.  The  workhouse  authorities  replied  with  humility 
that  there  was  not.  Upon  this  the  parish  authorities  mag- 
nanimously and  humanely  resolved  that  Oliver  should  be 
"  farmed,"  or,  in  other  words,  that  he  should  be  de- 
spatched to  a  branch  workhouse  some  three  miles  off, 
where  twenty  or  thirty  other  juvenile  offenders  against 
the  p)oor  laws  rolled  about  the  floor  all  day,  without  the 
inconvenience  of  too  much  food  or  too  much  clothing, 
under  the  parental  superintendence  of  an  elderly  female, 
w^ho  received  the  culprits  at  and  for  the  consideration  of 
sevenpence  halfpenny  per  small  head  per  week.  Seven- 
pence  halfpennj^'s  worth  per  week  is  a  good  round  diet 
for  a  child;  a  great  deal  may  be  got  for  sevenpence  half- 
penny, quite  enough  to  overload  its  stomach,  and  make  it 
uncomfortable.  The  elderly  female  was  a  woman  of  wis- 
dom and  experience;  she  knew  what  was  good  for  chil- 
dren; and  she  had  a  very  accurate  perception  of  what  was 
good  for  herself.  So  she  appropriated  the  greater  part  of 
the  weekly  stipend  to  her  own  use,  and  consigned  the 
rising  parochial  generation  to  even  a  shorter  allowance 
than  was  originally  provided  for  them.  Thereby  finding  in 
the  lowest  depth  a  deeper  still;  and  proving  herself  a  very 
great  experimental  philosopher. 

The  system  did  not  work  well  for  the  children. 
17 


246  DICKENS  AS  AN   EDUCATOR. 

For  at  the  very  moment  when  a  child  had  contrived 
to  exist  upon  the  smallest  possible  portion  of  the  weakest 
possible  food,  it  did  perversely  happen  in  eight  and  a  half 
cases  out  of  ten,  either  that  it  sickened  from  want  or  cold, 
or  fell  into  the  fire  from  neglect,  or  got  half-smothered 
by  accident;  in  any  one  of  which  cases,  the  miserable  little 
being  was  usually  summoned  into  another  world,  and 
there  gathered  to  the  fathers  it  had  never  known  in  this. 

It  can  not  be  expected  that  this  system  of  farming 
would  produce  any  very  extraordinary  or  luxuriant  crop. 
Oliver  Twist's  ninth  birthday  found  him  a  pale,  thin  child, 
somewhat  diminutive  in  stature,  and  decidedly  small  in 
circumference.  It  was  his  ninth  birthday;  and  he  was 
keeping  it  in  the  coal  cellar  with  a  select  party  of  two 
other  young  gentlemen,  who,  after  participating  with  him 
in  a  sound  thrashing,  had  been  locked  up  for  atrociously 
presuming  to  be  hungry. 

The  famous  meal  in  the  workhouse  when  Oliver  asked 
for  m.ore  was  intended  to  direct  attention  to  the  way 
children  were  fed  and  treated  in  institutions.  The  boys 
were  fed  on  gruel. 

Of  this  festive  composition  each  boy  had  one  por- 
ringer, and  no  more — except  on  occasions  of  great  public 
rejoicing,  when  he  had  two  ounces  and  a  quarter  of  bread 
besides.  The  bowls  never  wanted  washing.  The  boys 
polished  them  with  their  spoons  till  they  shone  again; 
and  when  they  had  performed  this  operation  (which  never 
took  very  long,  the  spoons  being  nearly  as  large  as  the 
bowls),  they  would  sit  staring  at  the  copper,  with  such 
eager  eyes,  as  if  they  could  have  devoured  the  very  bricks 
of  which  it  was  composed;  employing  themselves,  mean- 
while, in  sucking  their  fingers  most  assiduously,  with  the 
view  of  catching  up  any  stray  splashes  of  gruel  that  might 
have  been  east  thereon.  Boys  have  generally  excellent  ap- 
petites. Oliver  Twist  and  his  companions  suffered  the  tor- 
tures of  slow  starvation  for  three  months;  at  last  they 
got  so  voracious  and  wild  with  hunger  that  one  boy  who 
was  tall  for  his  age,  and  hadn't  been  used  to  that  sort 
of  thing  (for  his  father  had  kept  a  small  cookshop), 
hinted  darkly  to  his  companions  that  unless  he  had  an- 
other basin  of  gruel  per  diem,  he  was  afraid  he  might  some 
night  happen  to  eat  the  boy  who  slept  next  to  him,  who 
happened  to  be  a  weakly  youth  of  tender  age.     He  had  a 


NUTRITION  AS  A  FACTOR  IN  EDUCATION.    24:7 

wild,  hungry  eye;  and  they  implicith-  belie^ed  him.  A 
council  was  held;  lots  were  cast  who  should  walk  up  to 
the  master  after  supper  that  evening,  and  ask  for  more; 
and  it  fell  to  Oliver  Twist. 

The  evening  arrived;  the  boys  took  their  places.  The 
master,  in  his  cook's  uniform,  stationed  himself  at  the 
copper;  his  pauper  assistants  ranged  themselves  behind 
him;  the  gruel  was  served  out;  and  a  long  grace  was  said 
over  a  short  commons.  The  gruel  disappeared;  the  boys 
whispered  each  other  and  winked  at  Oliver;  while  his  next 
neighbours  nudged  him.  Child  as  he  was,  he  was  desper- 
ate with  hunger  and  reckless  with  misery.  He  rose  from 
the  table;  and  advancing  to  the  master,  basin  and  spoon 
in  hand,  said,  somewhat  alarmed  at  his  own  temerity: 

"  Please,  sir,  I  want  some  more." 

The  master  was  a  fat,  healthy  man;  but  he  turned 
very  pale.  He  gazed  in  stupefied  astonishment  on  the 
small  rebel  for  some  seconds,  and  then  clung  for  support 
to  the  copper.  The  assistants  were  paralyzed  with  won- 
der;  the  boys  with  fear. 

*'  What  I  "  said  the  master  at  length,  in  a  faint  voice. 

"  Please,  sir,"  replied  Oliver,  "  I  want  some  more." 

The  master  aimed  a  blow  at  Oliver's  head  with  the 
ladle;  pinioned  his  arms;  and  shrieked  aloud  for  the 
beadle. 

The  board  were  sitting  in  solemn  conclave,  when  Mr. 
Bumble  rushed  into  the  room  in  great  excitement,  and 
addressing  the  gentleman  in  the  high  chair,  said: 

"  Mr.  Limbkins,  I  beg  your  pardon,  sir!  Oliver  Twist 
has  asked  for  more." 

There  was  a  general  start.  Horror  was  depicted  in 
every  countenance. 

"  For  more!  "  said  Mr.  Limbkins.  "  Compose  yourself. 
Bumble,  and  answer  me  distinctly.  Do  I  understand  that 
he  asked  for  more,  after  he  had  eaten  the  supper  allotted 
by  the  dietary?  " 

"  He  did,  sir,"  replied  Bumble. 

"  That  boy  will  be  hung,"  said  the  gentleman  in  the 
white  waistcoat.     "  I  know  that  boy  will  be  hung." 

Having  shown  how  infants  were  starved  in  "  farm- 
ing," and  how  boys  were  starved  in  the  workhouses,  he 
next  directed  attention  to  the  way  apprentices  were 
treated. 


248  DICKENS  AS  AN  EDUCATOR. 

Mr.  Sowerberry  was  an  undertaker,  who  decided  to 
take  Oliver  from  the  workhouse.  He  took  Oliver  "  upon 
liking,"  which  meant  that  "  if  he  could  get  enough  work 
out  of  him  without  putting  too  much  food  into  him,  he 
should  keep  him  for  a  term  of  years  to  do  what  he  liked 
with  him." 

When  Oliver  had  been  driven  to  desperation  by  Noah 
Claypole,  and  had  punished  him  as  he  deserved,  Mrs.  Sow- 
erberry sent  for  Mr.  Bumble.  When  Mr.  Bumble  asked 
Oliver  if  he  was  not  afraid  of  him,  Oliver  bravely  an- 
swered "  No !  "  The  Beadle  was  petrified  with  amazement, 
and  he  accounted  for  Oliver's  wickedness  by  saying : 

"  It's  meat." 

"What?"  exclaimed  Mrs.  Sowerberry. 

"  Meat,  ma'am,  meat,"  replied  Bumble,  with  stern  em- 
phasis. "  You've  overfed  him,  ma'am.  You've  raised  a 
artificial  soul  and  spirit  in  him,  ma'am,  unbecoming  a  per- 
son of  his  condition;  as  the  board,  Mrs.  Sowerberry,  who 
are  practical  philosophers,  will  tell  you.  What  have  pau- 
pers to  do  with  soul  or  spirit?  It's  quite  enough  that  we 
let  'em  have  live  bodies.  If  you  had  kept  the  boy  on  gruel, 
ma'am,  this  would  never  have  happened." 

"  Dear,  dear!  "  ejaculated  Mrs.  Sowerberry,  piously 
raising  her  eyes  to  the  kitchen  ceiling;  "  this  comes  of 
being  liberal!  " 

The  liberality  of  Mrs.  Sowerberry  to  Oliver  had  con- 
sisted in  a  profuse  bestowal  upon  him  of  all  the  dirty  odds 
and  ends  which  nobody  else  would  eat. 

By  this  conversation  Dickens  meant  to  teach  that  a 
well-fed  child  is  a  different  type  from  one  who  is  not 
properly  nourished;  that  food  has  an  influence  on  the 
spirit,  as  well  as  on  the  body.  He  did  not  disapprove  of 
Oliver's  spirit,  but  he  heartily  commended  him  for  re- 
senting the  way  he  was  treated.  This  lesson  was  needed 
too,  as  children  were  expected  to  submit  uncomplainingly 
to  those  who  were  their  legal  guardians,  whether  stran- 
gers or  parents.  Now,  largely  through  Dickens,  children 
are  not  only  encouraged  to  defend  themselves  against 
cruel  and  tyrannical  guardians  or  parents,  and  to  run  away 
from  them,  but  the  state  itself  will  take  them  away,  if 


NUTRITION  AS   A  FACTOR  IN  EDUCATION.     249 

cruelty  is  proved  against  those  who  should  be  their  pro- 
tectors. 

Dickens  also  revealed  by  this  incident  the  meanness 
of  adults  not  only  in  institutions  but  in  homes,  in  giving 
to  the  children  the  "  odds  and  ends,"  the  scraps,  the  parts 
of  the  fowl  or  the  meat  that  older  people  do  not  care 
for.^  He  brought  the  matter  up  again  in  Great  Expec- 
"tal:ions.  At  the  Christmas  dinner  Pip  "  was  regaled  with 
the  scaly  tips  of  the  drumsticks  of  the  fowls,  and  with 
those  obscure  corners  of  pork  of  which  the  pig,  when  liv- 
ing, had  least  reason  to  be  vain." 

One  of  the  reasons  given  by  Snawley  to  Squeers  to 
induce  him  to  take  his  stepsons  at  a  lower  rate  was  that 
"  they  were  not  great  eaters." 

The  selfishness  of  adulthood  toward  childhood,  and 
the  stupidity  of  the  general  idea,  that  children  do  not 
require  good  food  because  they  are  young  and  do  not 
have  to  work  hard,  were  held  up  to  deserved  ridicule, 
in  Squeers's  manner  of  breakfasting  in  London,  and 
the  food  he  provided  for  the  five  hungry  little  boys  to 
strengthen  them  for  their  long  ride  to  Yorkshire  in  cold 
weather. 

He  found  that  learned  gentleman  sitting  at  breakfast, 
with  the  three  little  boys  before  noticed,  and  two  others 
who  had  turned  up  by  some  lucky  chance  since  the  inter- 
view of  the  previous  day,  ranged  in  a  row  on  the  opposite 
seat.  'Sir.  Squeers  had  before  him  a  small  measure  of 
coffee,  a  plate  of  hot  toast,  and  a  cold  round  of  beef;  but 
he  was  at  that  moment  intent  on  preparing  breakfast  for 
the  little  boys. 

"  This  is  two  penn'orth  of  milk,  is  it,  waiter?  "  said  'Sir. 
Squeers,  looking  down  into  a  large  blue  mug,  and  slanting 
it  gently,  so  as  to  get  an  accurate  view  of  the  quantity  of 
liquid  contained  in  it. 

"  That's  two  penn'orth,  sir,"  replied  the  waiter. 

"What  a  rare  article  milk  is,  to  be  sure,  in  London!  " 
said  Mr.  Squeers  with  a  sigh.  "  Just  fill  that  mug  up 
with  lukewarm  water,  William,  will  you?  " 

"  To  the  wery  top,  sir?  "  inquired  the  waiter.  "  Why, 
the  milk  will  be  drownded." 

"  Never  you  mind  that,"  replied  Mr.  Squeers.     "  Serve 


250  DICKENS  AS   AN   PJDUCATOR. 

it  right  for  being  so  dear.     You  ordered  that  thick  bread 
and  butter  for  three,  did  you?  " 

"  Coming  directly,  sir." 

"  You  needn't  hurry  yourself,"  said  Squeers;  "  there's 
plenty  of  time.  Conquer  your  passions,  boys,  and  don't 
be  eager  after  vittles."  As  he  uttered  this  moral  precept, 
Mr.  Squeers  took  a  large  bite  out  of  the  cold  beef,  and 
recognised  Nicholas. 

"  Sit  down,  Mr.  Nickleby,"  said  Squeers.  "  Here  we 
are,  a-breakfasting  you  see!  " 

Nicholas  did  not  see  that  anybody  was  breakfasting, 
except  Mr.  Squeers;  but  he  bowed  with  all  becoming  rev- 
erence, and  looked  as  cheerful  as  he  could. 

"Oh!  that's  the  milk  and  water,  is  it,  William?"  said 
Squeers.  "  Very  good;  don't  forget  the  bread  and  butter 
presently." 

At  this  fresh  mention  of  the  bread  and  butter  the  five 
little  boys  looked  very  eager,  and  followed  the  waiter  out, 
with  their  eyes;  meanwhile  Mr.  Squeers  tasted  the  milk 
and  water. 

"  Ah!  "  said  that  gentleman,  smacking  his  lips,  "  here's 
richness!  Think  of  the  many  beggars  and  orphans  in  the 
streets  that  would  be  glad  of  this,  little  boys.  A  shocking 
thing  hunger  is,  isn't  it,  Mr.  Nickleby?  " 

"  Very  shocking,  sir,"  said  Nicholas. 

"  When  I  say  number  one,"  pursued  Mr.  Squeers,  put- 
ting the  mug  before  the  children,  "  the  boy  on  the  lefl 
hand  nearest  the  window  may  take  a  drink;  and  when  1 
say  number  two,  the  boy  next  him  will  go  in.  and  so  till 
we  come  to  number  five,  which  is  the  last  boy.  Are  yon 
ready?" 

"  Yes,  sir,"  cried  the  little  boys  with  great  eagerness. 

"  That's  right,"  said  Squeers,  calmly  getting  on  witl 
his  breakfast;  "  keep  ready  till  I  tell  you  to  begin.  Subduo 
your  appetites,  my  dears,  and  you've  conquered  human 
natur.  This  is  the  way  we  inculcate  strength  of  mind, 
Mr.  Nickleby,"  said  the  schoolmaster,  turning  to  Nicholas, 
and  speaking  with  his  mouth  very  full  of  beef  and  toast. 

Nicholas  murmured  something — he  knew  not  what — in 
reply;  and  the  little  boys,  dividing  their  gaze  between  the 
mug,  the  bread  and  butter  (which  had  by  this  time  ar- 
rived), and  every  morsel  which  Mr.  Squeers  took  into  his 
mouth,  remained  with  strained  eyes  in  torments  of  ex- 
pectation. 


NUTRITION   AS  A   FACTOR  IN   EDUCATION.    251 

"  Thank  God  for  a  good  breakfast,"  said  Squeers,  when 
he  had  finished.     "  Number  one  may  take  a  drink." 

Number  one  received  the  mug  ravenously,  and  had  just 
drunk  enough  to  make  him  wish  for  more,  when  Mr. 
Squeers  gave  the  signal  for  number  two,  who  gave  up  at 
the  same  interesting  moment  to  number  three;  and  the 
process  was  repeated  until  the  milk  and  water  terminated 
with  number  five. 

"  And  now,"  said  the  schoolmaster,  dividing  the  bread 
and  butter  for  three  into  as  many  portions  as  there  were 
children,  "  you  had  better  look  sharp  with  your  breakfast, 
the  horn  will  blow  in  a  minute  or  two,  and  then  every 
boy  leaves  off." 

Permission  being  thus  given  to  fall  to,  the  boys  began 
to  eat  voraciously,  and  in  desperate  haste,  while  the 
schoolmaster  (who  was  in  high  good  humour  after  his 
meal)  picked  his  teeth  with  a  fork,  and  looked  smilingly 
on.     In  a  very  short  time  the  horn  was  heard. 

"  I  thouglit  it  wouldn't  be  long,"  said  Squeers,  jumping 
up  and  producing  a  little  basket  from  under  the  seat; 
"  put  what  you  haven't  had  time  to  eat  in  here,  boys! 
You'll  want  it  on  the  road!  " 

Young  Wackford  Squeers  was  fed  on  the  fattest  meats, 
so  that  he  might  be  kept  plump  and  energetic,  in  order 
that  he  might  be  taken  to  London  to  show  intending 
patrons  how  well  the  boys  were  fed  in  Dotheboys  Hall. 

Again,  in  The  Old  Curiosity  Shop,  the  starving  of 
child  servants  is  condemned  by  the  way  Sally  Brass  fed 
the  Marchioness.  Dick  Swiveller's  curiosity  led  him  to 
peep  through  a  crack  in  the  kitchen  door  one  day  while 
Sally  was  giving  the  little  servant  her  dinner. 

Ever3'thing  was  locked  up;  the  coal  cellar,  the  candle 
box,  the  salt  box,  the  meat  safe  were  all  padlocked.  There 
was  nothing  that  a  beetle  could  have  lunched  upon.  The 
pinched  and  meagre  aspect  of  the  place  would  have  killed 
a  chameleon;  he  would  have  known,  at  the  first  mouthful, 
that  the  air  was  not  eatable,  and  must  have  given  up  the 
ghost  in  despair. 

The  small  servant  stood  with  humility  in  presence  of 
Miss  Sally,  and  hung  her  head. 

"  Are  you  there?  "  said  Miss  Sally. 

"  Yes,  ma'am,"  was  the  answer,  in  a  w^eak  voice. 


252  DICKENS  AS  AN  EDUCATOR. 

"  Go  farther  away  from  the  leg  of  mutton,  or  you'll  be 
picking-  it,  I  know,"  said  Miss  Sally. 

The  girl  withdrew  into  a  corner,  while  Miss  Brass  took 
a  key  from  her  pocket,  and  opening  the  safe,  brought  from 
it  a  dreary  waste  of  cold  potatoes,  looking  as  eatable  as 
Stonehenge.  This  she  placed  before  the  small  servant, 
ordering  her  to  sit  down  before  it,  and  then,  taking  up  a 
great  carving  knife,  made  a  mighty  show  of  sharpening 
it  upon  the  carving  fork. 

"  Do  you  see  this?  "  said  Miss  Brass,  slicing  off  about 
two  square  inches  of  cold  mutton,  after  all  this  prepara- 
tion, and  holding  it  out  on  the  point  of  the  fork. 

The  small  servant  looked  hard  enough  at  it  with  her 
hungry  eyes  to  see  every  shred  in  it,  small  as  it  was,  and 
answered,  "  Yes." 

"  Then  don't  you  ever  go  and  say,"  retorted  Miss  Sally, 
"  that  you  hadn't  meat  here.     There,  eat  it  up." 

This  was  soon  done.  "  Now,  do  you  want  any  more?  " 
said  Miss  Sally. 

The  hungry  creature  answered  with  a  faint  "  No." 
They  were  evidently  going  through  an  established  form. 

"  You've  been  helped  once  to  meat,"  said  Miss  Brass, 
summing  up  the  facts;  "  you've  have  had  as  much  as  you 
can  eat,  3'ou're  asked  if  you  want  any  more,  and  you  an- 
swer 'No!  '  Then  don't  you  ever  go  and  say  you  were 
allowanced,  mind  that." 

Dickens  showed  the  evil  effects  of  eating  too  rapidly 
in  his  description  of  the  dinner  in  Mrs.  Pawkins's  board- 
ing house  in  New  York,  where  Martin  Chuzzlewit  board- 
ed for  a  short  time  after  reaching  America. 

It  was  a  numerous  company,  eighteen  or  twenty  per- 
haps. Of  these,  some  five  or  six  were  ladies,  who  sat 
wedged  together  in  a  little  phalanx  by  themselves.  All  the 
knives  and  forks  were  working  away  at  a  rate  that  was 
quite  alarming;  very  few^  words  were  spoken;  and  every- 
body seemed  to  eat  his  utmost  in  self-defence,  as  if  a 
famine  were  expected  to  set  in  before  breakfast  time  to- 
morrow morning,  and  it  had  become  high  time  to  assert 
the  first  law  of  Nature.  The  poultry,  which  may  perhaps 
be  considered  to  have  formed  the  staple  of  the  entertain- 
ment— for  there  was  a  turkey  at  the  top,  a  pair  of  ducks 
at  the  bottom,  and  two  fowls  in  the  middle — disappeared 
as  rapidly  as  if  every  bird  had  had  the  use  of  its  wings, 


NUTRITION  AS   A   FACTOR   IN  EDUCATION.    25a 

and  had  flown  in  desperation  down  a  human  throat.  The 
oysters,  stewed  and  pickled,  leaped  from  their  capacious 
reservoirs,  and  slid  by  scores  into  the  mouths  of  the  as- 
sembly. The  sharpest  pickles  vanished,  whole  cucumbers 
at  once,  like  sugarplums,  and  no  man  winked  bis  eye. 
Great  heaps  of  indigestible  matter  melted  away  as  ice 
before  the  sun.  It  was  a  solemn  and  an  awful  thing  to  see. 
Dyspeptic  individuals  bolted  their  food  in  wedges;  feeding 
not  themselves,  but  broods  of  nightmares,  who  were  con- 
tinually standing  at  livery  within  them.  Spare  men,  with 
lank  and  rigid  cheeks,  came  out  unsatisfied  from  the  de- 
struction of  heavy  dishes,  and  glared  with  watchful  eyes 
upon  the  p)astry.  What  Mrs.  Pawkins  felt  each  day  at  din- 
ner time  is  hidden  from  all  human  knowledge.  But  she 
had  one  comfort.     It  was  very  soon  over. 

Dickens  repeats  this  criticism  of  rapid  eating  in  his 
American  Xotes,  when  specifying  the  causes  of  disease 
among  American  people.  He  says :  "  The  custom  of 
hastily  swallowing  large  quantities  of  animal  food  three 
times  a  day  and  rushing  back  to  sedentary  pursuits  after 
each  meal  must  be  changed." 

Poor  Paul  Dombey  was  sacrified  to  his  father's  pride. 
Mrs.  Toodle  was  dismissed  by  Mr.  Dombey  because  she 
dared  to  take  his  infant  son  with  her  when  she  went 
to  see  her  own  children.  Paul  was  thus  robbed  of  the 
natural  food,  which  his  sensitive  nature  needed  so  much. 
This  was  largely  responsible  for  the  fact  that  Paul  was 
delicate.  By  first  depriving  him  of  proper  food,  and  then 
sending  him  to  Doctor  Blimber's  school  "  to  learn  every- 
thing," Mr.  Dombey  led  directly  to  Paul's  death.  His 
pride  and  vanity  overreached  themselves. 

In  Mrs.  Pipchin's  meals  Dickens  tried  to  show  two 
things:  First,  the  selfishness  of  adulthood  in  regard  to 
children's  diet  as  compared  with  its  own;  second,  the 
absolute  insufiiciency  of  the  kind  of  food  commonly  sup- 
plied to  children  for  building  up  strong,  energetic,  and 
well-developed  men  and  women. 

She  regaled  the  children  with  a  repast  of  "  farinaceous 
and  vegetable  foods — chiefly  rice,"  but  she  herself  had  a 
good  hot  dinner  with  mutton  chops. 

The  children  were  required  to  repeat  a  form  of  grace 


254  DICKENS  AS  AN  EDUCATOR. 

thanking  Mrs.  Pipchin  for  a  good  dinner.  Oliver  was 
told  he  must  be  thankful  to  the  kind  gentlemen  who  pro- 
vided food  for  him  in  the  workhouse.  The  same  mockery 
of  religion  by  mixing  it  up  with  the  starvation  of  child- 
hood is  made  ridiculous  in  the  letter  which  Squeers 
read  to  the  unfortunate  children  in  Dotheboys  Hall,  pre- 
tending that  it  had  been  written  by  the  stepmother  of 
Mobbs. 

"  Mobbs's  stepmother,"  said  Squeers,  "  took  to  her  bed 
on  hearing  that  he  wouldn't  eat  fat,  and  has  been  very 
ill  ever  since.  She  wishes  to  know,  by  an  early  post, 
where  he  expects  to  go  to  if  he  quarrels  with  his  vittles; 
and  with  what  feelings  he  could  turn  up  his  nose  at  the 
cow's  liver's  broth,  after  his  good  master  had  asked  a 
blessing  on  it."  "  Cow's  liver's  broth  "  would  not  be  a  very 
strengthening  diet  for  children  even  with  the  blessing  of 
so  good  a  man  as  Squeers  upon  it. 

Dickens  makes  a  characteristic  hit  at  the  fashionable 
idea  which  was  popular  at  one  time,  that  it  was  rather 
indelicate,  especially  in  a  lady,  to  have  a  good  robust 
constitution  and  a  vigorous  digestion  in  describing  Mr. 
Vholes  in  Bleak  House.  "  His  dig'estion  was  impaired, 
which  is  always  highly  respectable." 

Mrs.  Cruncher,  in  A  Tale  of  Two  Cities,  objected  to 
the  questionable  ways  in  which  Mr.  Cruncher  earned  his 
money  sometimes.  Her  husband  charged  her  with  flying 
in  the  face  of  Providence  by  refusing  the  "  wittles  and 
drink  "  he  provided  for  her,  and  especially  for  neglect- 
ing to  give  it  to  their  son.  "  With  you  flying  into  the 
face  of  your  own  wittles  and  drink !  I  don't  know  how 
scarce  you  mayn't  make  the  wittles  and  drink  here  by 
your  flopping  tricks  and  your  unfeeling  conduct.  Look 
at  your  boy:  he  is  yourn,  ain't  he?  He's  as  thin  as  a 
lath.  Do  you  call  yourself  a  mother,  and  not  know  a 
mother's  first  duty  is  to  blow  her  son  out." 

Abel  Magwitch,  when  describing  the  terrible  training 
he  received  at  the  hands  of  a  Christian  community  in 
the  most  advanced  Christian  civilization  of  the  world, 
said  that  when  he  was  in  jail  some  philanthropists 
"  measured  his  head  to  find  out  the  cause  of  his  wicked- 


NUTRITION  AS  A  FACTOR  IN  EDUCATION.    255 

ness,"  and  added  with  great  wisdom,  "  they  had  better 
a-measured  my  stomach." 

The  folly  of  hoping  that  healthy  infants  can  be 
nourished  by  mothers  who  are  compelled  to  labour  con- 
tinuously through  long  hours  without  rest  is  shown  in 
the  description  of  the  child  whose  mother  was  a  waitress, 
in  Somebody's  Luggage.  Incidentally,  too,  Dickens  re- 
veals in  this  case  the  facts  that  the  power  of  assimila- 
tion of  little  children  is  usually  impaired,  and  that,  as  a 
consequence,  they  become  more  peevish,  and  therefore 
get  shaken  and  otherwise  abused  for  the  ignorance  of 
the  adults  responsible  for  their  care.  Speaking  of  the 
treatment  of  the  baby,  ne  says: 

You  were  conveyed — ere  yet  your  dawning  powers 
were  otherwise  developed  than  to  harbour  vacancy  in  your 
inside — you  were  conveyed  by  surreptitious  means  into 
a  pantry  adjoining  the  Admiral  Nelson,  Civic  and  General 
Dining-Rooms,  there  to  receive  by  stealth  that  healthful 
sustenance  which  is  the  pride  and  boast  of  the  British 
female  constitution.  Under  the  combined  influence  of  the 
smells  of  roast  and  boiled,  and  soup,  and  gas,  and  malt 
liquors,  you  partook  of  your  earliest  nourishment;  your 
unwilling  grandmother  sitting  prepared  to  catch  you  when 
your  mother  was  called  and  dropped  you;  your  grandmoth- 
er's shawl  ever  ready  to  stifle  your  natural  complainings; 
your  innocent  mind  surrounded  by  uncongenial  cruets, 
dirty  plates,  dish  covers,  and  cold  gravj*;  your  mother  call- 
ing down  the  pipe  for  veals  and  porks,  instead  of  soothing 
you  with  nursery  rhymes.  Under  these  untoward  circum- 
stances you  were  early  weaned.  Your  unwilling  grandmoth- 
er, ever  growing  more  unwilling  as  your  food  assimilated 
less,  then  contracted  habits  of  shaking  you  till  your  sys- 
tem curdled,  and  your  food  would  not  assimilate  at  all. 

The  schoolmaster  in  Jemmy  Lirriper's  original  story 
was  captured  and  put  into  confinement  for  his  treat- 
ment of  the  boys,  and  he  was  to  have  nothing  to  eat  but 
the  boys'  dinners,  and  was  to  drink  half  a  cask  of  their 
beer  every  day. 

The  schoolboy  in  The  Schoolboy's  Story  describes  the 
food  given  to  the  boys  as  one  of  the  grievances  they  had 
against  the  institution. 


256  DICKENS  AS  AN  EDUCATOR. 

As  to  the  beef,  it's  shameful.  It's  7iot  beef.  Eegular 
beef  isn't  veins.  You  can  chew  regular  beef.  Besides 
which,  there's  gravy  to  regular  beef,  and  you  never  see  a 
drop  to  ours.  Another  of  our  fellows  went  home  ill,  and 
heard  the  family  doctor  tell  his  father  that  he  couldn't  ac- 
count for  his  complaint  unless  it  w^as  the  beer.  Of  course 
it  was  the  beer,  and  well  it  might  be! 

However,  beef  and  Old  Cheeseman  are  two  different 
things.  So  is  beer.  It  was  Old  Cheeseman  I  meant  to  tell 
about;  not  the  manner  in  which  our  fellows  get  their 
constitutions  destroyed  for  the  sake  of  profit. 

Why,  look  at  the  pie  crust  alone.  There's  no  flakiness 
in  it.  It's  solid — like  damp  lead.  Then  our  fellows  get 
nightmares,  and  are  bolstered  for  calling  out  and  waking 
other  fellows.     Who  can  wonder! 

Old  Cheeseman  one  night  w-alked  in  his  sleep,  put  his 
hat  on  over  his  nightcap,  got  hold  of  a  fishing  rod  and  a 
cricket  bat,  and  went  down  into  the  parlour,  where  they 
naturally  thought  from  his  appearance  he  was  a  Ghost. 
Why,  he  never  would  have  done  that  if  his  meals  had  been 
wholesome.  When  we  all  begin  to  walk  in  our  sleeps, 
I  suppose  they'll  be  sorry  for  it. 

At  Doctor  Blimber's  school  they  used  "to  crib  the 
boys'  dinners."  There  is  no  more  outrageous  practice 
than  that  of  depriving  a  child  of  food  as  a  means  of 
punishment. 

Dickens  ended  his  sketch  entitled  A  Walk  in  a  Work- 
house with  a  plea  on  behalf  of  the  inmates  for  "  a  little 
more  liberty — and  a  little  more  bread,"  and  even  in  his 
last  book,  Edwin  Drood,  he  was  still  directing  attention 
to  the  poor  food  supplied  in  boarding  schools. 

Mrs.  Billickin  was  very  plain  in  her  hints  about  the 
poor  board  supplied  to  Eosa  at  Miss  Twinkleton's  when 
she  received  the  schoolmistress  in  her  own  home.  Refer- 
ring to  Rosa,  who  was  now  residing  with  Mrs.  Billickin, 
she  said : 

"  I  did  think  it  well  to  mention  to  my  cook,  which  I  'ope 
you  will  agree  with,  Miss  Twinkleton,  was  a  right  pre- 
caution, that  the  young  lady  being  used  to  what  we  should 
consider  here  but  poor  diet,  had  better  be  brought  forward 
by  degrees.  For  a  rush  from  scanty  feeding  to  generous 
feeding,  and  from  what  you  may  call  messing  to  what  you 


NUTRITION   AS  A  FACTOR  IN   EDUCATION.    257 

may  call  method,  do  require  a  power  of  constitution, 
which  is  not  often  found  in  youth,  particularly  when  un- 
dermined by  boarding-  school!  I  was  put  in  youth  to  a 
very  genteel  boarding-  school,  the  mistress  being-  no  less 
a  lady  than  yourself,  of  about  your  own  age,  or,  it  may  be 
some  years  younger,  and  a  poorness  of  blood  flowed  from 
the  table  which  has  run  through  my  life." 


CHAPTER   XV. 

,     MINOR   SCHOOLS. 

The  schools  of  Squeers,  Doctor  Blimber,  Mr.  Creakle, 
Doctor  Strong,  and  Mr.  Gradgrind  and  Mr.  M'Choakum- 
child  are  the  most  celebrated  schools  of  Dickens,  and 
they  contain  the  greater  part  of  his  pedagogical  teaching. 
His  other  schools  are,  however,  worthy  of  very  careful 
study. 

One  of  the  first  of  the  Sketches  by  Boz  described  a 
man  who  had  passed  through  many  vicissitudes,  and  at 
length  was  reduced  to  such  poverty  that  he  applied  to 
the  parish  board  for  charity.  This  led  to  his  appointment 
as  a  schoolmaster.  Dickens  clearly  intended  to  teach  the 
lesson,  afterward  emphasized  in  Nicholas  Nickleby  and 
other  books,  that  poverty  should  not  establish  a  claim  to 
the  position  of  a  school-teacher. 

Minerva  Hall,  also  in  Sketches  by  Boz,  reveals  "  one 
of  those  public  nuisances,  a  spoiled  child,"  spoiled  be- 
cause his  papa  was  too  busy  with  public  duties  and  his 
mamma  with  society  duties  to  train  him  properly.  It  also 
shows  the  reason  Mrs.  Cornelius  Brook  Dingwall  had  for 
sending  her  daughter  to  school.  She  said :  "  One  of  my 
principal  reasons  for  parting  with  my  daughter  is  that  she 
has  lately  acquired  some  sentimental  ideas,  which  it  is 
most  desirable  to  eradicate  from  her  young  mind." 
Here  the  public  nuisance  fell  out  of  a  chair,  and  mamma 
and  papa  showed  their  usual  mode  of  training  him. 
Mamma  called  him  "  a  naughty  boy,"  and  threatened  "  to 
send  for  James  to  take  him  away " — both  name  and 
threat  being  wrong.  Papa  merely  excused  the  cherub  on 
the  ground  of  "  his  great  flow  of  spirits,"  The  school  also 
shows  the  silly  training  of  so-called  "  finishing  schools," 
258 


MINOR  SCHOOLS.  259 

as  chiefly  intended  to  teach  young  ladies  the  small  con- 
ventionalities of  "  society." 

In  The  Old  Curiosity  Shop  there  are  four  schools :  Mr. 
Marton's  two  schools,  Mrs.  Wackles's  school,  and  Miss 
Monflathers's  school.  Mr.  Marton's  first  school  was  intro- 
duced to  reveal  all  the  good  qualities  that  Mr.  Squeers 
lacked,  especially  sympathy.  Mr.  Marton  was  the  imme- 
diate successor  of  Mr.  Squeers,  and  they  possessed  directly 
opposite  traits  of  character  in  their  relationship  to  child- 
hood. Mr.  Squeers  was  coarse,  unsympathetic,  and  coer- 
cive. Mr.  Marton  was  kind,  considerate,  and  a  perfect 
type  of  true  sympathy  with  the  child.  It  is  reasonable  to 
believe  that  Mr.  Marton  and  Mr.  Squeers  were  drawn  as 
companion  pictures  to  illustrate  and  enforce  the  same 
truth — that  sympathy  with  the  child  is  the  fundamental 
element  in  the  character  of  a  true  teacher. 

The  old  bachelor  emphasized  this  when  he  said  to  Mr. 
Marton,  "  You  are  none  the  worse  teacher  for  having 
learned  humanity." 

There  is  a  great  deal  of  food  for  psychological  and 
pedagogical  study  in  the  introduction  of  the  boys  he  was 
to  teach  in  his  second  school,  given  by  the  bachelor  to 
Mr.  Marton.  The  bachelor  was  as  full  of  genuine  boy- 
ish spirit  as  it  is  possible  for  any  adult  to  be,  and  was  in 
some  respects  a  more  perfect  type  for  an  ideal  teacher 
than  Mr.  Marton.  Mr.  Marton  had  the  tender,  spiritual 
sympathy  of  a  true  woman,  the  motherhood  spirit  that 
constitutes  the  atmosphere  in  which  all  right  elements  of 
childhood  find  their  richest  development;  the  bachelor 
had  the  perfect  manly  sympathy  that  enabled  him  to 
enter  heartily  into  boy  life.  He  had  especially  the  power 
of  recognising  in  the  things  for  which  boys  are  often  re- 
buked the  best  evidences  of  their  strength,  and  he  could 
remember  his  own  boyhood  so  well  as  to  fully  sympathize 
with  the  boys.  Mr.  Marton  and  the  bachelor  reveal  the 
whole  range  of  sjTnpathetic  possibilities. 

When  nothing  more  was  left  to  be  done  he  charged 
the  boy  to  run  off  and  bring  his  schoolmates  to  be  mar- 
shalled before  their  new  master  and  solemnly  reviewed. 

"  As  good  a  set  of  fellows,  Marton,  as  you'd  w  ish  to 


260  DICKENS  AS  AN  EDUCATOR. 

see,"  he  said,  turning  to  the  schoolmaster  when  the  boy 
was  gone;  "  but  I  don't  let  'em  know  I  think  so.  That 
wouldn't  do  at  all." 

The  messenger  soon  returned  at  the  head  of  a  long 
row  of  urchins,  great  and  small,  who,  being  confronted 
by  the  bachelor  at  the  house  door,  fell  into  various  con- 
vulsions of  politeness;  clutching  their  hats  and  caps, 
squeezing  them  into  the  smallest  possible  dimensions,  and 
making  all  manner  of  bows  and  scrapes,  which  the  little 
old  gentleman  contemplated  with  excessive  satisfaction, 
and  expressed  his  approval  of  by  a  great  many  nods  and 
smiles.  Indeed,  his  approbation  of  the  boys  was  by  no 
means  so  scrupulously  disguised  as  he  had  led  the  school- 
master to  suppose,  inasmuch  as  it  broke  out  in  sundry 
loud  whispers  and  confidential  remarks  which  were  per- 
fectly audible  to  them  every  one. 

"  This  first  boy,  schoolmaster,"  said  the  bachelor,  "  is 
John  Owen;  a  lad  of  good  parts,  sir,  and  frank,  honest 
temper;  but  too  thoughtless,  too  playful,  too  light-headed 
by  far.  That  boy,  my  good  sir,  would  break  his  neck  with 
pleasure,  and  deprive  his  parents  of  their  chief  comfort — 
and  between  ourselves,  when  you  come  to  see  him  at  hare 
and  hounds,  taking  the  fence  and  ditch  by  the  finger  post, 
and  sliding  down  the  face  of  the  little  quarry,  you'll  never 
forget  it.     It's  beautiful!  " 

John  Owen  having  been  thus  rebuked,  and  being  in 
perfect  possession  of  the  speech  aside,  the  bachelor  sin- 
gled out  another  boy. 

"  Now  look  at  that  lad,  sir,"  said  the  bachelor.  "  You 
see  that  follow?  Richard  Evans  his  name  is,  sir.  An 
amazing  boy  to  learn,  blessed  with  a  good  memory  and  a 
ready  understanding,  and  moreover  with  a  good  voice  and 
ear  for  psalm  singing,  in  which  he  is  the  best  among  us. 
Yet,  sir,  that  boy  will  come  to  a  bad  end;  he'll  never  die 
in  his  bed;  he's  always  falling  asleep  in  sermon  time — and 
to  tell  you  the  truth,  Mr.  Marton,  I  always  did  the  same 
at  his  age,  and  feel  quite  certain  that  it  was  natural  to  my 
constitution,  and  I  couldn't  help  it." 

This  hopeful  pupil  edified  by  the  above  terrible  re- 
proval,  the  bachelor  turned  to  another. 

"  But  if  we  talk  of  examples  to  be  shunned,"  said  he, 
"  if  we  come  to  boys  that  should  be  a  w^arning  and  a  beacon 
to  all  their  fellows,  here's  the  one,  and  I  hope  you  won't 
spare  him.     This  is  the  lad,  sir;    this  one  with  the  blue 


MINOR  SCHOOLS.  261 

eyes  and  light  hair.  This  is  a  swimmer,  sir,  this  fellow — 
a  diver,  Lord  save  us!  This  is  a  boy,  sir,  who  had  a  fancy 
for  plunging  into  eighteen  feet  of  water,  with  his  clothes 
on,  and  bringing  up  a  blind  man's  dog,  who  was  being 
drowned  by  the  weight  of  his  chain  and  collar,  while  his 
master  stood  wringing  his  hands  upon  the  bank,  bewailing 
the  loss  of  his  guide  and  friend,  I  sent  the  boy  two 
guineas  anonymously,  sir,"  added  the  bachelor,  in  his 
peculiar  whisper,  "directly  I  heard  of  it;  but  never  men- 
tion it  on  any  account,  for  he  hasn't  the  least  idea  that  it 
came  from  me." 

Having  disposed  of  this  culprit,  the  bachelor  turned  to 
another,  and  from  him  to  another,  and  so  on  through  the 
whole  array,  laying,  for  their  wholesome  restriction  within 
due  bounds,  the  same  cutting  emphasis  on  such  of  their 
propensities  as  were  dearest  to  his  heart,  and  were  unques- 
tionably referable  to  his  own  precept  and  example.  Thor- 
oughly persuaded,  in  the  end,  that  he  had  made  them  mis- 
erable by  his  severity,  he  dismissed  them  with  a  small 
present,  and  an  admonition  to  walk  quietly  home,  without 
any  leapings,  scuttlings,  or  turnings  out  of  the  way;  which 
injunction,  he  informed  the  schoolmaster  in  the  same 
audible  confidence,  he  did  not  think  he  could  have  obeyed 
when  he  was  a  boy  had  his  life  depended  on  it. 

What  a  model  he  was  for  teachers,  this  glorious 
bachelor,  in  his  sympathy  with  the  boys,  and  in  his  uncon- 
ventionality !  When  teachers  begin  to  feel  the  grip  of  for- 
malism on  their  better  natures  and  begin  to  lose  faith  in 
so-called  bad  boys,  they  should  read  this  introduction  of 
the  pupils  by  the  bachelor.  Bless  his  memory!  he  will 
always  rank  among  the  greatest  child  trainers. 

His  pretence  of  not  letting  the  boys  know  that  he 
thought  they  were  good  fellows  was  a  pleasant  rebuke 
of  the  miserable  old  doctrine  that  a  boy  should  always  be 
told  his  faults,  but  never  be  spoken  to  about  his  virtues. 
This  false  doctrine  having  been  so  carefully  applied  in 
homes  and  schools  for  centuries  as  a  religious  duty,  based 
on  the  unscriptural  doctrine  of  child  depravity,  has  made 
a  large  portion  of  humanity  in  Christian  countries  mere 
defect  dodgers,  instead  of  making  them  conscious  of 
power  to  do  independent  work  for  God  and  their  fellow- 
men.  Dickens  had  no  faith  in  this  doctrine,  and  he 
18 


262  DICKENS  AS  AN  EDUCATOR. 

taught  that  one  of  the  highest  things  a  teacher  can  do 
for  a  child  is  to  recognise  and  show  honest  appreciation 
of  his  best  powers  and  qualities.  When  superintendents 
search  as  carefully  for  the  good  qualities  and  powers  of 
their  teachers  as  some  yet  do  for  their  weaknesses,  and 
when  they  are  so  unconventional  as  to  be  able  to  show 
genuine  appreciation  frankly  to  the  teachers  themselves, 
the  schools  will  reach  their  proper  rate  of  progressive  de- 
velopment. 

Through  the  whole  series  of  criticisms  of  the  boys, 
Dickens  is  showing  the  full  rich  sympathy  of  his  own 
great  heart  for  the  whole  race  of  boys  in  the  unreason- 
able and  unjust  criticism  to  which  they  are  subjected  by 
forgetful  and  ignorant  adulthood.  Those  who  should  be 
wisest  in  these  matters — and  especially  many  who  think 
themselves  wise — are  still  very  forgetful  of  their  own 
early  life,  and  very  ignorant  of  boyhood. 

Mrs.  Wackles's  school  was  called  a  "  Ladies'  Semi- 
nary," but  it  was  in  reality  "  a  very  small  day  school  for 
young  ladies  of  proportionate  dimensions." 

The  several  duties  of  instruction  in  this  establishment 
were  thus  discharged:  English  grammar,  composition, 
geography,  and  the  use  of  the  dumb-bells,  by  Miss  Melissa 
Wackles;  writing,  arithmetic,  dancing,  music,  and  general 
fascination,  by  Miss  Sophy  Wackles;  the  art  of  needle- 
work, marking,  and  samplery,  by  Miss  Jane  Wackles;  cor- 
poral punishment,  fasting,  and  other  tortures  and  ter- 
rors, by  Mrs.  Wackles.  Miss  Melissa  Wackles  was  the  eld- 
est daughter.  Miss  Sophy  the  next,  and  Miss  Jane  the  young- 
est. Miss  Melissa  might  have  seen  five-and-thirty  summers 
or  thereabout,  and  verged  on  the  autumnal.  Miss  Sophy  was 
a  fresh,  good-humoured,  buxom  girl  of  twenty;  and  JSIiss 
Jane  numbered  scarcely  sixteen  years.  Mrs.  Wackles  was 
an  excellent,  but  rather  venomous  old  lady  of  threescore. 

Mrs.  Wackles's  school  is  described  to  show  the  frivo- 
lous nature  of  such  so-called  private  educational  institu- 
tions, and  to  strike  again  the  abominable  practice  of 
abusing  children  by  "  corporal  punishment,  fasting,  and 
other  tortures  and  terrors  "  by  "  a  venomous  old  lady  of 
threescore." 


MlXOfl  SCHOOLS.  263 

Miss  Monflathers's  school  was  a  boarding  establish- 
ment for  young  ladies,  in  which  they  were  duly  impressed 
with  the  dignity  of  their  social  position ;  with  the  terrible 
danger  of  yielding  in  any  way  to  their  natural  impulses, 
all  of  w^hich  were  assumed  to  be  very  wicked;  with  the 
sinfulness  of  sympathizing  with  or  in  any  way  recognis- 
ing the  lower  classes;  with  the  impropriety  of  knowing 
the  fact  that  there  was  any  wrong  in  the  world  to  be 
righted  or  any  suffering  to  be  relieved;  with  the  ines- 
timable value  of  aristocratic  birth;  and  with  the  most 
important  truth  that  men  are  very  dangerous  animals,  to- 
be  carefully  shunned. 

Little  ISTell  was  sent  to  the  establishment  of  Miss 
Monflathers  with  notices  of  Mrs.  Jarley's  waxworks,  being 
temporarily  in  the  employ  of  that  lady. 

Nell  had  no  difficulty  in  finding  out  Miss  Monflathers's 
Boarding  and  Day  Establishment,  which  was  a  large 
house,  with  a  high  wall,  and  a  large  garden  gate  with  a 
large  brass  plate,  and  a  small  grating  through  which  Miss 
Monflathers's  parlour  maid  inspected  all  visitors  before 
admitting  them;  for  nothing  in  the  shape  of  a  man — no, 
not  even  a  milkman — was  suffered,  without  special  license^ 
to  pass  that  gate.  Even  the  taxgatherer,  who  was  stout,  and 
wore  spectacles  and  a  broadbrimmed  hat,  had  the  taxes 
handed  through  the  grating.  More  obdurate  than  gate  of 
adamant  or  brass,  this  gate  of  Miss  Monflathers's  frowned 
on  all  mankind.  The  very  butcher  respected  it  as  a  gate  of 
mystery,  and  left  off  whistling  when  he  rang  the  bell. 

As  Nell  approached  the  awful  door,  it  turned  slowly 
upon  its  hinges  with  a  creaking  noise,  and  forth  from  the 
solemn  grove  bej'ond  came  a  long  file  of  j'oung  ladies,  two 
and  two,  all  with  open  books  in  their  hands,  and  some  with 
parasols  likewise.  And  last  of  the  goodly  procession  came 
Miss  Monflathers,  bearing  herself  a  parasol  of  lilac  silk,  and 
supported  by  two  smiling  teachers,  each  mortally  envious 
of  the  other,  and  devoted  unto  Miss  ^lonflathers. 

Confused  by  the  looks  and  whispers  of  the  girls,  Nell 
stood  with  downcast  eyes  and  suffered  the  procession  to 
pass  on,  until  Miss  Monflathers,  bringing  up  the  rear,  ap- 
proached her,  when  she  courtesied  and  presented  her  little 
packet;  on  receipt  whereof  Miss  Monflathers  commanded 
that  the  line  should  halt. 


264  DICKENS  AS  AN  EDUCATOR. 

"  You're  the  waxwork  child,  are  you  not?  "  said  Miss 
Monflathers. 

"  Yes,  ma'am,"  replied  Nell,  colouring-  deeply,  for  the 
young-  ladies  had  collected  about  her,  and  she  was  the 
centre  on  which  all  eyes  were  fixed. 

"  And  don't  you  think  you  must  be  a  very  wicked  little 
child,"  said  Miss  Monflathers,  who  was  of  rather  uncer- 
tain temper,  and  lost  no  opportunity  of  impressing*  moral 
truths  upon  the  tender  minds  of  young-  ladies,  "  to  be  a 
waxwork  child  at  all?  " 

Poor  Nell  had  never  viewed  her  position  in  this  light, 
and  not  knowing  what  to  say,  remained  silent,  blushing 
more  deeply  than  before. 

"  Don't  you  know,"  said  Miss  Monflathers,  "  that  it's 
very  naughty  and  unfeminine,  and  a  perversion  of  the 
properties  wisely  and  benignantly  transmitted  to  us,  with 
expansive  powers  to  be  roused  from  their  dormant  state 
through  the  medium  of  cultivation?  " 

"  Don't  you  feel  how  naughty  it  is  of  you,"  resumed 
Miss  Monflathers,  "  to  be  a  waxwork  child,  when  you 
might  have  the  proud  consciousness  of  assisting,  to  the 
extent  of  your  infant  powers,  the  manufactures  of  your 
country;  of  improving  your  mind  by  the  constant  contem- 
plation of  the  steam  engine;  and  of  earning  a  comfortable 
and  independent  subsistence  of  from  two  and  ninepence 
to  three  shillings  per  week?  Don't  you  know  that  the 
harder  you  are  at  work,  the  happier  you  are?  " 

"  '  How    doth    the    little '  "    murmured    one    of    the 

teachers  in  quotation  from  Dr.  Watts. 

"  Eh?  "  said  Miss  Monflathers,  turning  smartly  round. 
*♦  Who  said  that?  " 

"  The  little  busy  bee,"  said  Miss  Monflathers,  drawing 
herself  up,  "  is  applicable  only  to  genteel  children. 

'  In  books,  or  work,  or  healthful  play  ' 

is  quite  right  as  far  as  they  are  concerned;  and  the  work 
means  painting  on  velvet,  fancy  needlework,  or  embroid- 
ery. In  such  cases  as  these,"  pointing  to  Nell  with  her 
parasol,  "  and  in  the  case  of  all  poor  people's  children,  we 
should  read  it  thus: 

*  In  work,  work,  work.     In  work  alway 
Let  my  first  years  be  passed. 
That  I  may  give  for  ev'ry  day 
Some  good  account  at  last.'  " 


MINOR  SCHOOLS.  2G5 

Just  then  somebodj-  happened  to  discover  that  Xell 
was  crying,  and  all  eyes  were  again  turned  toward  her. 

There  were  indeed  tears  in  her  eyes,  and  drawing  out 
her  handkerchief  to  brush  them  away,  she  happened  to  let 
it  fall.  Before  she  could  stoop  to  pick  it  up,  one  young 
lady  of  about  fifteen  or  sixteen,  who  had  been  standing 
a  little  apart  from  the  others,  as  though  she  had  no  recog- 
nised place  among  them,  sprang  forward  and  put  it  in 
her  hand.  She  was  gliding  timidly  away  again,  when  she 
was  arrested  by  the  governess. 

"  It  was  Miss  Edwards  who  did  that,  I  knoic,"  said 
Miss  ^lonflathers  predictively.  "  Now  I  am  sure  that  was 
Miss  Edwards." 

It  was  Miss  Edwards,  and  everybody  said  it  was  ]SIiss 
Edwards,  and  Miss  Edwards  herself  admitted  that  it  was. 

"  Is  it  not,"  said  Miss  Monflathers,  putting  down  her 
parasol  to  take  a  severer  view  of  the  offender,  ''  a  most 
remarkable  thing,  Miss  Edwards,  that  you  have  an  attach- 
ment to  the  lower  classes  which  always  draws  you  to 
their  sides;  or,  rather,  is  it  not  a  most  extraordinary  thing 
that  all  I  say  and  do  will  not  wean  you  from  propensities 
which  your  original  station  in  life  has  unhappily  ren- 
dered habitual  to  you,  you  extremely  vulgar-minded  girl?  " 

"  I  really  intended  no  harm,  ma'am,"  said  a  sweet 
voice.     "  It  was  a  momentary  impulse,  indeed." 

"  An  impulse!  "  repeated  Miss  Monflathers  scornfully. 
'*  I  wonder  that  you  presume  to  speak  of  impulses  to  me  " 
— both  the  teachers  assented — "  I  am  astonished  " — both 
the  teachers  were  astonished — "  I  suppose  it  is  an  impulse 
which  induces  you  to  take  the  part  of  every  grovelling  and 
debased  person  that  comes  in  your  way  " — both  the  teach- 
ers supposed  so  too. 

"  But  I  would  have  you  know,  Miss  Edwards,"  resumed 
the  governess,  in  a  tone  of  increased  severity,  "  that  you 
can  not  be  permitted — if  it  be  only  for  the  sake  of  pre- 
serving a  proper  example  and  decorum  in  this  establish- 
ment— that  you  can  not  be  permitted,  and  that  you  shall 
not  be  permitted,  to  fly  in  the  face  of  your  superiors  in 
this  extremely  gross  manner.  If  you  have  no  reason  to  feel 
a  becoming  pride  before  waxvsork  children,  there  are 
young  ladies  here  who  have,  and  you  must  either  defer  to 
those  young  ladies  or  leave  the  establishment,  Miss  Ed- 
wards." 

This  young  lady,  being  motherless  and  poor,  was  ap- 


206  DICKENS  AS  AN  EDUCATOR.       ~ 

prenticed  at  the  school — taught  for  nothing — teaching  oth- 
ers what  she  learned  for  nothing — boarded  for  nothing — 
lodged  for  nothing — and  set  down  and  rated  as  something 
immeasurably  less  than  nothing,  by  all  the  dwellers  in  the 
house.  The  servant  maids  felt  her  inferiority,  for  they 
were  better  treated;  free  to  come  and  go,  and  regarded  in 
their  stations  with  much  more  respect.  The  teachers  were 
infinitely  superior,  for  they  had  paid  to  go  to  school  in 
their  time,  and  were  paid  now.  The  pupils  cared  little  for 
a  companion  who  had  no  grand  stories  to  tell  about  home; 
no  friends  to  come  with  post  horses,  and  be  received  in  all 
humility,  with  cake  and  wine,  by  the  governess;  no  deferen- 
tial servant  to  attend  and  bear  her  home  for  the  holidays; 
nothing  genteel  to  talk  about,  and  nothing  to  display.  But 
why  was  Miss  Monflathers  always  vexed  and  irritated  with 
the  poor  apprentice — how  did  that  come  to  pass? 

Why,  the  gayest  feather  in  Miss  Monflathers's  cap,  and 
the  brightest  glory  of  Miss  Monflathers's  school,  was  a 
baronet's  daughter — the  real  live  daughter  of  a  real  live 
baronet — who,  by  some  extraordinary  reversal  of  the  laws 
of  Nature,  was  not  only  plain  in  features  but  dull  in  intel- 
lect, while  the  poor  apprentice  had  both  a  ready  wit  and 
a  handsome  face  and  figure.  It  seems  incredible.  Here 
was  Miss  Edwards,  who  only  paid  a  small  premium  which 
had  been  spent  long  ago,  every  day  outshining  and  excell- 
ing the  baronet's  daughter,  who  learned  all  the  extras 
(or  was  taught  them  all),  and  whose  half  yearly  bill  came 
to  double  that  of  any  other  young  lady's  in  the  school, 
making  no  account  of  the  honour  and  reputation  of  her 
pupilage.  Therefore,  and  because  she  was  a  dependent. 
Miss  Monflathers  had  a  great  dislike  to  Miss  Edwards,  and 
was  spiteful  to  her,  and  aggravated  by  her,  and,  when  she 
had  compassion  on  Little  Nell,  verbally  fell  uj)on  and  mal- 
treated her,  as  we  have  already  seen. 

"  You  will  not  take  the  air  to-day,  Miss  Edwards,"  said 
Miss  Monflathers.  "  Have  the  goodness  to  retire  to  your 
own  room,  and  not  to  leave  it  without  permission." 

The  poor  girl  was  moving  hastily  away,  when  she  was 
suddenly,  in  a  nautical  phrase,  "  brought  to  "  by  a  sub- 
dued  shriek   from   Miss   Monflathers. 

"  She  has  passed  me  without  any  salute!  "  cried  the 
governess,  raising  her  eyes  to  the  sky.  "  She  has  actually 
passed  me  without  the  slightest  acknowledgment  of  my 
presence!  " 


MIXOE  SCHOOLS.  267 

The  young  lady  turned  and  courtesied.  Nell  could  see 
that  she  raised  her  dark  eyes  to  the  face  of  her  superior, 
and  that  their  expression,  and  that  of  her  whole  attitude 
for  the  instant,  was  one  of  mute  but  most  touching  appeal 
against  this  ungenerous  usage.  Miss  Monflathers  only 
tossed  her  head  in  reply,  and  the  great  gate  closed  upon 
a  bursting  heart. 

In  addition  to  the  gross  e\als  of  such  institutioii^ 
already  suggested,  Dickens  exposed  the  cruelty  of  Miss 
Monflathers,  as  a  type  of  Christian  rectitude,  toward 
Kell,  whom  she  assumed  to  be  very  wicked,  and  the 
tendency  of  society  to  treat  teachers  with  contempt,  if 
they  are  not  rich.  The  standard  based  on  mere  wealth  is 
happily  changing. 

The  tone  of  Miss  Monflathers's  lofty  criticism  in  lan- 
guage and  thought,  quite  incomprehensible  to  the  person 
admonished,  is  very  true  to  the  life  in  cases  of  conven- 
tional people,  who  take  no  pains  to  understand  child 
nature  or  human  nature  in  any  phase,  except  its  de- 
pravity. 

The  heartlessness  of  the  distinction  between  the  "  gen- 
teel" children  and  poor  children  is  clearly  pointed  out. 
There  could  scarcely  be  a  more  unchristlike  thought  than 
the  one  that  would  prohibit  the  children  of  the  poor  from 
the  enjo\Tnent  of  their  natural  tendency  to  play.  No 
civilization  in  which  either  by  deliberate  purpose  or  by 
criminal  negligence  the  children  of  the  poorest  are  left 
without  the  privilege  and  the  means  for  full  free  play 
should  dare  to  call  itself  Christian.  Yet  Miss  Mon- 
flathers's parody  aptly  represented  the  practical  outwork- 
ing of  civilization  at  the  time  of  Dickens,  and  long  since, 
too,  in  regard  to  poor  children. 

Miss  Monflathers  told  Miss  Edwards  majestically  that 
she  "  must  not  take  the  air  to-day,"  and  contemptuously 
ordered  her  to  remain  in  her  room  all  day.  This  was 
written  to  condemn  the  common  punishment  of  keeping 
children  in  at  recess  or  confining  them  as  a  means  of 
punishment.  Dickens  always  thought  it  a  crime  against 
childhood  to  punish  a  child  by  robbing  it  of  any  of  its 
natural  rights  to  food,  or  fresh  air,  or  free  exercise. 


268  DICKEXS  AS  AN   EDUCATOR. 

The  ecstasy  of  passion  reached  by  Miss  Monflathers  be- 
cause Miss  Edwards  passed  her  without  saluting  her 
showed  Dickens's  attitude  toward  those  who  insisted  and 
still  insist  on  obeisance  from  those  whom  they  are  pleased 
to  regard  as  "  inferiors."  PubMc  school  education  has 
been  criticised  because  "  it  does  not  train  poor  chil- 
dren to  courtesy  to  their  superiors."  Any  system  de- 
serves the  support  of  all  right-thinking  people  if  it  trains 
the  children  of  the  poorest  to  hold  their  heads  up  respect- 
fully, and  look  the  world  squarely  in  the  face  without  a  de- 
basing consciousness  of  inferiority.  The  greatest  aim  of 
education,  so  far  as  the  individual  is  concerned,  is  free- 
dom— spiritual  freedom.  Respect  for  properly  consti- 
tuted authority  should  become  a  part  of  every  child's 
consciousness,  but  this  properly  involves  contempt  for 
the  arrogant  assumption  of  certain  people  that  certain 
other  people  should  bow  down  in  servile  humility  to  them. 
Education  must  always  be  the  enemy  of  tyranny,  slavery, 
and  all  kinds  of  abasement. 

The  grinders'  school  was  introduced  to  ridicule  the 
practice  of  forcing  all  children  in  charitable  institutions 
to  wear  a  uniform  dress,  and  to  attack  corporal  punish- 
ment, neglect  of  moral  training,  and  the  practice  of  pla- 
cing ignorant  men  in  the  high  position  of  a  teacher.  The 
teacher  in  the  grinders'  school  was  "  a  superannuated 
old  grinder  of  savage  disposition,  who  had  been  appointed 
schoolmaster  because  he  didn't  know  anything,  and  wasn't 
fit  for  anything,  and  for  whose  cruel  cane  all  chubby  little 
boys  had  a  perfect  fascination."  The  practice  of  dressing 
all  children  alike,  and  of  dressing  them  all  without  taste, 
is  continued  in  most  homes  for  oi*phan  children  still. 
Surely  the  poor  orphans  have  suffered  enough  without 
subjecting  them  to  the  indignity  of  tasteless  dressing. 
There  might  at  least  be  a  difference  of  taste  in  colour,  for 
instance,  for  the  blondes  and  the  brunettes. 

The  school  taught  by  Agnes  in  David  Copperfield  is 
mentioned  to  show  that  if  a  teacher  works  with  a  true 
spirit  (Agnes  was  a  splendid  character  for  women  to  study 
with  great  care),  teaching  is  a  pleasant  instead  of  an 
unhappy  profession. 


MINOR  SCHOOLS.  26^ 

David  said :  "  It  is  laborious,  is  it  not  ?  "  "  The  labour 
is  so  pleasant,"  she  returned,  "  that  it  is  scarcely  grateful 
in  me  to  call  it  by  that  name." 

The  school  attended  by  Uriah  Heep  and  his  father 
before  him  was  described  as  an  attack  on  the  practice  of 
instilling  into  the  minds  of  poor  children  the  conscious- 
ness of  subserviency.  David  says :  "  I  fully  comprehended 
now  for  the  first  time  (after  hearing  Uriah  describe  his 
training  at  school)  what  a  base,  unrelenting,  and  revenge- 
ful spirit  must  have  been  engendered  by  this  early,  and 
this  long,  suppression." 

The  first  school  attended  by  Esther  in  Bleak  House  is 
apparently  introduced  to  point  out  four  evils  in  the 
social  training  of  little  children.  The  other  children  were 
all  older  than  Esther;  her  godmother  refused  to  allow 
her  to  accept  invitations  to  go  to  the  homes  of  the  other 
girls;  she  was  never  allowed  out  to  play;  and  while  holi- 
days were  given  on  the  birthdays  of  other  girls,  none 
were  ever  given  on  hers.  The  cruelty  of  two  of  these 
evils  was  made  still  more  bitter  by  the  revelation  of  the 
fact  that  she  was  not  treated  like  other  girls  because 
of  some  wrong  her  mother  was  supposed  to  have  done. 

Miss  Donny's  school  at  Greenleaf  was  a  charming 
place,  conducted  in  a  "  precise,  exact,  and  orderly  way.'*^ 
Esther  was  taught  well,  and  trained  well.  She  was  to  be  a 
governess,  and  so  she  taught  as  she  learned.  Her  barren 
childhood  made  her  sympathize  with  the  girls  whom  she 
taught,  especially  the  new  girls,  and  she  naturally  won 
their  love,  and  was  therefore  happy.  Esther  possessed 
every  essential  characteristic  of  a  good  teacher  and  a  true 
woman.  Miss  Donny's  school  is  one  of  the  schools  in 
which  Dickens  was  approving,  not  condemning. 

Mr-  Cripple's  academy  is  merely  mentioned  in  Little 
Dorrit  to  complain  about  the  habit  of  scribbling  over 
buildings  and  on  desks  and  walls  in  which  boys  used  to  in- 
dulge, and  of  which  many  evidences  may  yet  be  found  on 
the  fences  and  walls  of  the  present  day. 

"  The  pupils  of  Mr.  Cripple's  appeared  to  have  been 
making  a  copy  book  of  the  street  door,  it  was  so  exten- 
sively scribbled  over  in  pencil." 


270  DICKENS  AS  AN   EDUCATOR. 

Pip's  early  education,  in  Great  Expectations,  was  re- 
ceived in  Mr.  Wopsle's  great-aunt's  school. 

Mr.  Wopsle's  great-aunt  kept  an  evening  school  in  the 
village;  that  is  to  say,  she  was  a  ridiculous  old  woman  of 
limited  means  and  unlimited  infirmity,  who  used  to  go  to 
sleep  from  six  to  seven  every  evening,  in  the  society  of 
youth,  who  paid  twopence  per  week  each,  for  the  im- 
proving opportunity  of  seeing  her  do  it.  She  rented  a 
small  cottage,  and  Mr.  Wopsle  had  the  room  upstairs, 
where  we  students  used  to  overhear  him  reading  aloud  in  a 
most  dignified  and  terrific  manner,  and  occasionally  bump- 
ing on  the  ceiling.  There  was  a  fiction  that  Mr.  Wopsle 
"  examined  "  the  scholars  once  a  quarter.  What  he  did  on 
those  occasions  was  to  turn  up  his  cuffs,  stick  up  his 
hair,  and  give  us  Mark  Antony's  oration  over  the  body  of 
Caesar. 

Much  of  my  unassisted  self,  and  more  by  the  help  of 
Biddy  than  of  Mr.  Wopsle's  great-aunt,  I  struggled 
through  the  alphabet  as  if  it  had  been  a  bramble  bush; 
getting  considerably  worried  and  scratched  by  every  let- 
ter. After  that  I  fell  among  those  thieves,  the  nine  fig- 
ures, who  seemed  every  evening  to  do  something  new  to 
disguise  themselves  and  baffle  recognition.  But  at  last 
I  began,  in  a  purblind  groping  way,  to  read,  write,  and 
cipher  on  the  very  smallest  scale. 

Biddy  was  Mr.  Wopsle's  great-aunt's  granddaughter;  I 
confessed  myself  quite  unequal  to  the  working  out  of  the 
problem,  what  relation  she  was  to  Mr.  Wopsle. 

The  educational  scheme  or  course  established  by  Mr. 
W^opsle's  great-aunt  may  be  resolved  into  the  following 
synopsis:  The  pupils  ate  apples  and  put  straws  down  one 
another's  backs,  until  Mr.  Wopsle's  great-aunt  collected 
her  energies,  and  made  an  indiscriminate  totter  at  them 
with  a  birch  rod.  After  receiving  the  charge  with  every 
mark  of  derision,  the  pupils  formed  in  line  and  buzzingly 
passed  a  ragged  book  from  hand  to  hand.  The  book  had 
an  alphabet  in  it,  some  figures  and  tables,  and  a  little 
spelling — that  is  to  say,  it  had  had  once.  As  soon  as  this 
volume  began  to  circulate,  Mr.  Wopsle's  great-aimt  fell 
into  a  state  of  coma,  arising  either  from  sleep  or  a  rheu- 
matic paroxysm.  The  pupils  then  entered  among  them- 
selves upon  a  competitive  examination  on  the  subject  of 
boots,  with  the  view  of  ascertaining  who  could  tread  the 
hardest   upon   whose    toes.      This    mental    exercise    lasted 


MINOR   SCHOOLS.  271 

until  Biddy  made  a  rush  at  them  and  distributed  three 
defaced  Bibles  (shaped  as  if  they  had  been  unskilfully  cut 
off  the  chumped  end  of  something),  more  illegiblj-  printed 
at  the  best  than  any  curiosities  of  literature  I  have  since 
met  with,  speckled  all  over  with  iron  mould,  and  having 
various  specimens  of  the  insect  world  smashed  between 
their  leaves.  This  part  of  the  course  was  usually-  light- 
ened by  several  single  combats  between  Biddy  and  refrac- 
tory students.  When  the  fights  were  over,  Biddy  gave 
out  the  number  of  a  page,  and  then  we  all  read  aloud 
what  we  could — or  what  we  couldn't — in  a  frightful 
chorus;  Biddy  leading  with  a  high  shrill  monotonous 
voice,  and  none  of  us  having  the  least  notion  of,  or  rever- 
ence for,  what  we  were  reading  about.  When  this  horrible 
din  had  lasted  a  certain  time,  it  mechanically  awoke  Mr. 
Wopsle's  great-aunt,  who  staggered  at  a  boy  fortuitously, 
and  pulled  his  ears.  This  was  understood  to  terminate 
the  course  for  the  evening,  and  we  emerged  into  the  air 
with  shrieks  of  intellectual  victory. 

The  reasons  for  describing  this  school  were  to  renew 
the  attack  on  bad  private  schools,  conducted  without  any 
state  control  and  no  supervision  or  inspection  by  com- 
petent officers,  to  show  the  need  of  better  appliances  and 
text-books,  and  to  teach  the  utter  folly  of  allowing  pupils 
to  try  to  read  any  book,  especially  the  Bible,  without 
understanding  what  they  were  reading.  Incidentally 
Dickens  taught  that  to  use  the  Bible  as  it  was  used  in 
Mr.  Wopsle's  great-aunt's  school  develops  a  lack  of  rev- 
erence for  it.  The  evil  of  corporal  punishment  of  the 
indiscriminate  and  irregular  kind  comes  in  for  a  share 
of  condemnation  in  this  wretched  school. 

Dickens  returned  to  the  attack  on  bad  private  schools 
in  Our  Mutual  Friend.  He  had  made  a  thorough  study  of 
the  evening  schools  conducted  in  London — conducted 
many  of  them  by  organizations  with  good  intentions. 

There  are  a  good  many  Sunday  schools  yet  which  in 
some  respects  are  open  to  the  criticisms  made  of  Charley 
Hexam's  first  school. 

The  school  at  which  young  Charley  Hexam  had  first 
learned  from  a  book — the  streets  being,  for  pupils  of  his 
degree,    the    great    preparatory    establishment,    in    which 


272  DICKENS  AS  AN   EDUCATOR. 

very  much  that  is  never  unlearned  is  learned  w^ithout  and 
before  book — was  a  miserable  loft  in  an  unsavoury  yard. 
Its  atmosphere  was  oppressive  and  disagreeable;  it  was 
crowded,  noisy,  and  confusing;  half  the  pupils  dropped 
asleep,  or  fell  into  a  state  of  stupefaction;  the  other  half 
kept  them  in  either  condition  by  maintaining  a  monot- 
onous droning  noise,  as  if  they  were  performing,  out  of 
time  and  tune,  on  a  ruder  sort  of  bagpipe.  The  teachers, 
animated  solely  by  good  intentions,  had  no  idea  of  execu- 
tion, and  a  lamentable  jumble  was  the  upshot  of  their 
kind  endeavours. 

It  was  a  school  for  all  ages  and  for  both  sexes.  The 
latter  were  kept  apart,  and  the  former  were  partitioned 
off  into  square  assortments.  But  all  the  place  was  per- 
vaded by  a  grimly  ludicrous  pretence  that  every  pupil 
was  childish  and  innocent.  This  pretence,  much  favoured 
by  the  lady  visitors,  led  to  the  ghastliest  absurdities. 
Young  women,  old  in  the  vices  of  the  commonest  and 
worst  life,  were  expected  to  profess  themselves  enthralled 
by  the  good  child's  book,  the  Adventures  of  Little  Mar- 
gery, who  resided  in  the  village  cottage  by  the  mill;  se- 
verely reproved  and  morally  squashed  the  miller,  when 
she  was  five  and  he  was  fifty;  divided  her  porridge  with 
singing  birds;  denied  herself  a  new  nankeen  bonnet,  on 
the  ground  that  the  turnips  did  not  wear  nankeen  bon- 
nets, neither  did  the  sheep,  who  ate  them;  who  plaited 
straw  and  delivered  the  dreariest  orations  to  all  comers,  at 
all  sorts  of  unseasonable  times.  So  unwieldy  young 
dredgers  and  hulking  mudlarks  were  referred  to  the  ex- 
periences of  Thomas  Twopence,  who,  having  resolved  not 
to  rob  (under  circumstances  of  uncommon  atrocity)  his 
particular  friend  and  benefactor,  of  eighteenpence,  pres- 
ently came  into  supernatural  possession  of  three  and  six- 
pence, and  lived  a  shining  light  ever  afterward.  (Note, 
that  the  benefactor  came  to  no  good.)  Several  swagger- 
ing sinners  had  written  their  own  biographies  in  the  same 
strain;  it  always  appearing  from  the  lessons  of  those  very 
boastful  persons  that  you  were  to  do  good,  not  because  it 
was  good,  but  because  you  w^ere  to  make  a  good  thing  of 
it.  Contrariwise,  the  adult  pupils  were  taught  to  read  (if 
they  could  learn)  out  of  the  New  Testament;  and  bj'^  dint 
of  stumbling  over  the  syllables  and  keeping  their  bewil- 
dered eyes  on  the  particular  syllables  coming  round  to 
their   turn,   were   as   absolutely   ignorant   of   the   sublime 


MINOR  SCHOOLS.  273 

history  as  if  they  had  never  seen  or  heard  of  it.  An  ex- 
ceedingly and  confoundingly  perplexing  jumble  of  a 
school,  in  fact,  where  black  spirits  and  gray,  red  spirits 
and  white,  jumbled,  jumbled,  jumbled,  jumbled,  jumbled 
every  night.  And  particularly  every  Sunday  night.  For 
then  an  inclined  plane  of  unfortunate  infants  would  be 
handed  over  to  the  prosiest  and  worst  of  all  the  teachers 
with  good  intentions,  whom  nobody  older  would  endure. 
"Who,  taking  his  stand  on  the  floor  before  them,  as  chief 
executioner,  would  be  attended  by  a  conventional  \olun- 
teer  boy  as  executioner's  assistant.  When  and  where  it 
first  became  the  conventional  system  that  a  weary  or  in- 
attentive infant  in  a  class  must  have  its  face  smoothed 
downward  with  a  hot  hand,  or  when  or  where  the  con- 
ventional volunteer  hoy  first  beheld  such  system  in  opera- 
tion, and  became  inflamed  with  a  sacred  zeal  to  admin- 
ister it.  matters  not.  It  was  the  function  of  the  chief 
executioner  to  hold  forth,  and  it  was  the  function  of  the 
acolyte  to  dart  at  sleeping  infants,  yawning  infants,  rest- 
less infants,  whimpering  infants,  and  smooth  their 
wretched  faces,  sometimes  with  one  hand,  as  if  he  were 
anointing  them  for  a  whisker;  sometimes  with  both 
hands,  applied  after  the  fashion  of  blinkers.  And  so  the 
jumble  would  be  in  action  in  this  department  for  a  mortal 
hour;  the  exponent  drawling  on  to  my  dearerr  childerren- 
err,  let  us  say  for  example,  about  the  beautiful  coming  to 
the  sepulchre;  and  repeating  the  word  sepulchre  (commonly 
used  among  infants)  five  hundred  times  and  never  once  hint- 
ing what  it  meant:  the  conventional  boy  smoothing  away 
right  and  left,  as  an  infallible  commentary;  the  w^hole  hot- 
bed of  fiushed  and  exhausted  infants  exchanging  measles, 
rashes,  whooping-cough,  fever,  and  stomach  disorders,  as 
if  they  were  assembled  in  High  ]SIarket  for  the  purpose. 

Even  in  this  temple  of  good  intentions,  an  exception- 
ally sharp  boy  exceptionally  determined  to  learn,  could 
learn  something,  and,  having  learned  it.  could  impart  it 
so  much  better  than  the  teachers;  as  being  more  knowing 
than  they,  and  not  at  the  disadvantage  in  which  they 
stood  toward  the  shrewder  pupils.  In  this  way  it  had  come 
about  that  Charley  Hexam  had  risen  in  the  jumble,  taught 
in  the  jumble,  and  been  received  from  the  jumble  into  a 
better  school. 

Dickens  slaughtered  evils  by  wholesale  in  this  brief 
description.    The  influence  of  the  great  preparatory  estab- 


274  DICKENS  AS  AN  EDUCATOR. 

lishment,  the  street,  was  brought  to  the  notice  of  think- 
ing people. 

The  need  of  ventilation  was  pointed  out,  and  the  evil 
of  crowding  a  large  number  of  pupils  into  poorly  ven- 
tilated rooms  was  made  very  clear.  "  Half  the  pupils 
dropped  asleep,  or  fell  into  a  state  of  waking  stupefac- 
tion." 

The  teachers  were  untrained.  "  They  were  animated 
solely  by  good  intentions,  and  had  no  idea  of  execution." 
The  consequence  was  a  lamentable  jumble. 

The  separation  of  the  sexes  was  not  approved. 

The  stupid  blunder  of  treating  all  pupils  alike,  with- 
out regard  to  heredity,  environment,  or  past  experience, 
is  aptly  caricatured  in  giving  the  Adventures  of  Little 
Margery  and  the  Experiences  of  Thomas  Twopence  to 
young  women  old  in  vice  and  to  young  male  criminals  in 
order  to  reform  them. 

Incidentally  he  disapproves  of  such  literature  for  any 
children,  and  also  of  the  autobiographies  of  "  swaggering 
sinners." 

The  error  pointed  out  in  Pip's  education  of  using  the 
New  Testament  as  a  book  from  which  pupils  should  be 
taught  how  to  read  is  emphasized.  "  By  dint  of  stum- 
bling over  the  syllables  and  keeping  their  bewildered 
eyes  on  the  particular  syllables  coming  round  to  their  turn, 
they  were  as  absolutely  ignorant  of  the  sublime  history 
as  if  they  had  never  seen  or  heard  of  it." 

He  criticised  severely  the  old  custom  of  giving  least 
attention  to  the  choice  of  a  teacher  for  the  little  ones. 
The  old  theory  was:  they  can  not  learn  much  any  way; 
anybody  will  do  to  teach  them.  "  The  inclined  plane  of 
unfortunate  infants  would  be  handed  over  to  the  prosiest 
and  worst  of  all  the  teachers  of  good  intentions,  whom 
nobody  older  would  endure." 

The  dreadful  practice,  still  kept  up  in  some  heathen- 
producing  Sunday  schools,  of  having  an  "  executioner's 
assistant  to  keep  order,"  is  severely  condemned.  "  It  was 
the  function  of  the  acolyte  to  dart  at  sleeping  infants, 
restless  infants,  whimpering  infants,  and  smooth  their 
wretched  faces."     The  irritating  influence  of  this  opera- 


MINOR  SCHOOLS.  275 

tion  on  the  suffering  infants  and  the  degrading  effect  on 
the  executioner's  assistant  himself  are  clearly  indicated. 

But  the  greatest  cruelty  was  in  having  the  infants 
talked  at  in  a  droning  voice  for  an  hour  by  the  chief 
executioner  in  a  voice  that  would  sometimes  deaden, 
sometimes  irritate  their  nervous  systems,  and  in  language 
they  could  not  comprehend,  about  subjects  entirely  for- 
eign to  their  experiences. 

The  danger  of  spreading  contagious  diseases  in  such 
badly  ventilated  schools  was  shown.  Dickens  was  a 
leader  in  the  department  of  sanitation  both  in  homes  and 
in  schools. 

The  schools  taught  by  Bradley  Headstone  and  Miss 
Peecher  were 

newly  built,  and  there  were  so  many  like  them  all  over 
the  country,  that  one  might  have  thought  the  whole  were 
but  one  restless  edifice  with  the  locomotive  gift  of  Alad- 
din's palace. 

All  things  in  these  schools — buildings,  teachers,  and 
pupils — were  according  to  pattern,  and  engendered  in  the 
light  of  the  latest  Gospel  according  to  Monotony. 

These  brief  descriptions  contained  volumes  of  protest 
against  the  dead  uniformity  of  school  architecture,  and 
against  the  sacrifice  of  individuality  in  schools.  There 
are  no  other  buildings  in  which  there  should  be  more  care 
taken  to  have  truly  artistic  architecture  than  in  schools, 
because  the  children  are  influenced  so  much  by  their  en- 
vironment. Correct  taste  may  be  formed  more  easily  and 
more  definitely  by  making  the  places  in  which  children 
spend  so  much  of  their  lives  truly  artistic  than  by  study- 
ing the  best  authorities.  The  child's  spirits  should  be 
toned  by  the  colouring  of  the  walls  of  the  schoolroom, 
and  by  the  pictures,  statues,  and  other  artistic  articles 
around  them. 

The  phrase  "  Gospel  according  to  Monotony "  is  one 
of  the  most  effective  phrases  ever  used  to  describe  the 
destruction  of  individuality. 

The  Peecher-Headstone  schools  were  described  as  one 
of  several  protests  against  separating  little  girls  from 
little  boys  in  schools. 


276  DICKENS  AS  AN  EDUCATOR. 

Phoebe,  the  happy  young  woman,  who  had  never  been 
able  to  sit  up  since  she  had  been  dropped  by  her  mother 
when  she  was  in  a  fit,  is  one  of  the  sweetest  of  the  char- 
acters of  Dickens.  She  lay  on  a  couch  as  high  as  the  win- 
dow and  enjoyed  the  view  as  she  made  lace.  She  taught 
a  little  school  part  of  the  day,  and  when  Barbox  Brothers 
was  at  Mugby  Junction  he  heard  the  children  singing  in 
the  school,  and  watched  them  trooping  home  happily 
till  he  became  so  interested  in  what  was  going  on  in  the 
little  cottage  that  he  went  in  to  investigate.  He  found 
a  small  but  very  clean  room,  with  no  one  there  but  Phoebe 
lying  on  her  couch.  He  asked  her  if  she  was  learned  in 
the  new  system  of  teaching,  meaning  the  kindergarten 
system,  because  he  had  heard  her  children  singing  as  he 
passed. 

"  No,"  she  said,  "  I  am  very  fond  of  children,  but  I 
know  nothing  of  teaching,  beyond  the  interest  I  have  in 
it,  and  the  pleasure  it  gives  me,  when  they  learn.  I  have 
only  read  and  been  told  about  the  new  system.  It  seemed 
so  pretty  and  pleasant,  and  to  treat  them  so  like  the  merry 
robins  they  are,  that  I  took  up  with  it  in  my  little  way. 
My  school  is  a  pleasure  to  me.  I  began  it,  when  I  was 
but  a  child,  because  it  brought  me  and  other  children  into 
company,  don't  you  see?  I  carry  it  on  still,  because  it 
keeps  children  about  me.     I  do  it  as  love,  not  as  work." 

What  a  beautiful  school!  What  an  ideal  spirit  for 
every  true  teacher!  What  a  wise  man  Dickens  was  to 
reveal  so  much  sweetness  and  trueness  in  the  life  of  such 
a  woman  as  Phoebe!  When  Phoebe  had  overcome  her 
restrictions  so  triumphantly,  surely  every  one  who  dares 
to  teach  should  try  to  rise  above  personal  infirmities,  and 
treat  children  like  the  "  merry  robins  that  they  are." 

The  Holiday  Romance,  in  which  three  young  children 
write  romances  for  the  edification  of  their  adult  friends 
and  relatives,  to  show  how  adult  treatment  impresses 
young  children,  is  usually  regarded  as  merely  an  exquisite 
piece  of  humour.  In  writing  to  Mr.  Fields  about  the 
story  Dickens  said :  "  It  made  me  laugh  to  that  extent, 
that  my  people  here  thought  I  was  out  of  my  wits,  until 
I  gave  it  to  them  to  read,  when  they  did  likewise." 


MINOR  SCHOOLS.  277 

There  is  more  philosophy  than  fun  in  these  stories, 
however,  and  when  carefully  studied  they  should  aid  in 
the  "  education  of  the  grown-up  people " — not  merely 
the  "  grown-ups "  for  whom  they  w^ere  intended,  but 
all  "  grown-ups."  This  is  especially  true  of  the  last 
story,  written  by  Miss  Nettie  Ashf  ord,  aged  "  half -past- 
six." 

The  story  is  about  Mrs.  Lemon's  school  and  Mrs. 
Orange's  family. 

"  The  grown-up  people  "  were  the  children  in  Nettie's 
story,  and  the  children  were  the  managers  of  all  things  at 
home  and  at  school. 

Mrs.  Orange  went  to  Mrs.  Lemon's  and  told  her  that 
"  her  children  were  getting  positively  too  much  for 
her."  She  had  two  parents,  two  intimate  friends  of  theirs, 
one  godfather,  two  godmothers,  and  an  aunt.  She 
wished  to  send  them  to  school,  because  they  were  "  getting 
too  much  for  her."  Many  real  mothers  give  the  same 
reason. 

"  Have  you  as  many  as  eight  vacancies?  " 
"  I  have  just  eight,  ma'am,"  said  Mrs.  Lemon. 
"  Corporal  punishment  dispensed  with?  " 
"  Why,   we   do  occasionally   shake,"   said   Mrs.   Lemon, 
"  and  we  have  slapped.     But  only  in  extreme  cases." 

Mrs.  Orange  was  shown  through  the  school,  and 
had  the  bad  "  grown-ups "  pointed  out  to  her  and 
their  evil  propensities  explained  to  her  in  their  hearing, 
as  naturally  as  in  a  real  school.  She  decided  to  send 
her  family,  and  went  home  with  her  baby — which  was 
a  doll — saying,  "  These  troublesome  troubles  are  got  rid 
of,  please  the  pigs." 

A  small  party  for  the  grown-up  children  was  given 
by  Mrs.  xllicumpaine,  and  the  arrangements  made  for  the 
adults,  and  the  ways  in  which  they  were  treated  by  their 
child  masters,  and  the  criticisms  on  the  way  the  seniors 
behaved  are  all  instructive  to  thoughtful  parents.  The 
real  things  that  adult  people  say  and  do  appear  delight- 
fully stupid  or  exquisitely  silly  when  made  to  appear  as 
•said  and  done  by  children. 
19 


278  DICKENS  AS  AN  EDUCATOR. 

When  Mr,  and  Mrs.  Orange  were  going-  home  they 
passed  the  establishment  of  Mrs.  Lemon,  and  necessarily 
thought  of  their  eight  adult  pupils  who  were  there. 

"  I  wonder,  James,  dear,"  said  Mrs.  Orange,  looking  up 
at  the  window,  "  whether  the  precious  children  are 
asleep!  " 

"  I  don't  care  much  whether  they  are  or  not,  myself," 
said  Mr.  Orange. 

"  James,  dear!  " 

"  You  dote  upon  them,  you  know,"  said  Mr.  Orange. 
"  That's  another  thing." 

"  I  do,"  said  Mrs.  Orange  rapturously.     "  Oh,  I  do!  " 

"  I  don't,"  said  Mr.  Orange. 

"  But,  I  was  thinking,  James,  love,"  said  Mrs.  Orange, 
pressing  his  arm,  "  whether  our  dear,  good,  kind  Mrs. 
Lemon  would  like  them  to  stay  the  holidays  with  her." 

"  If  she  was  paid  for  it,  I  dare  say  she  would,"  said  Mr. 
Orange. 

"  I  adore  them,  James,"  said  Mrs.  Orange,  "  but  suppose 
we  pay  her,  then." 

This  was  what  brought  the  country  to  such  perfec- 
tion, and  made  it  such  a  delightful  place  to  live  in.  The 
grown-up  people  (that  would  be  in  other  countries)  soon 
left  off  being  allowed  any  holidays  after  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
Orange  tried  the  experiment;  and  the  children  (that 
would  be  in  other  countries)  kept  them  at  school  as  long 
as  ever  they  lived,  and  made  them  do  whatever  they  were 
told. 

This  story  was  written  about  two  years  before  the 
death  of  Dickens,  so  it  represents  his  maturest  thought. 
Its  great  fundamental  motive  was  Froebel's  motto, 
"  Come,  let  us  live  with  our  children."  It  was  a  trench- 
ant, though  humorous  criticism  of  the  methods  of 
treating  children  practised  by  adults,  at  home  and  at 
school.  Mrs.  Orange's  adoration  for  children,  while  at  the 
same  time  she  was  proposing  to  keep  them  at  school  dur- 
ing the  holidays,  is  very  suggestive  to  those  mothers  who 
in  society  talk  so  much  about  their  "  precious  darlings,"' 
but  who  keep  them  in  the  nursery  so  that  they  have  no 
share  in  the  family  life.  The  practice  of  calling  children 
bad  and  describing  their  supposed  evil  propensities  in  the 
presence  of  others  is  also  condemned  in  this  story. 


MINOR  SCHOOLS.  279 

One  of  the  very  best  of  the  stories  of  Dickens  to  show 
his  perfect  sympathy  with  boyhood  is  the  story  told  by 
Jenuny  Jackman  Lirriper  about  "  the  boy  who  went  to 
school  in  Rutlandshire." 

It  reveals  the  feelings  of  boys  to  the  "  Tartars  "  who. 
teach  school,  as  the  boys,  when  they  got  control,  put  the 
Tartar  into  confinement  and  "  forced  him  to  eat  the  boys' 
dinners  and  drink  half  a  cask  of  their  beer  every  day." 

It  reveals,  too,  the  psychological  condition  of  a  healthy 
boy  just  entering  the  adolescent  period,  if  he  has  been 
fortunate  enough  to  have  had  a  life  of  love  and  freedom 
at  home;  with  his  heart  filled  with  love  for  the  school- 
master's daughter  Seraphina,  and  his  mind  filled  with 
hopeful  dreams  of  success,  and  triumph,  and  fortune,  and 
happiness  ever  afterward,  not  excluding  those  who  had 
nurtured  him,  but  sharing  all  with  them,  and  finding  his 
greatest  joy  in  their  affectionate  pride  at  his  success. 
Blessed  is  the  boy  who  has  such  glorious  experiences 
and  such  hopeful  dreams  in  his  later  boyhood  and  on- 
ward, and  thrice  blessed  is  he  who  finds  in  parenthood 
hearts  so  reverently  sympathetic  that  it  is  natural  for 
the  young  heart  to  overflow  into  them. 

"  But  such  dreams  can  never  come  true."  They  are 
true.  Nothing  is  ever  more  true  for  the  stage  of  evolu- 
tion in  which  they  naturally  fill  the  life  of  the  child. 
To  stop  them  is  a  crime;  to  shut  them  up  in  the  heart 
of  the  boy  or  girl  makes  them  a  source  of  great  danger 
instead  of  an  essential  element  in  the  ennoblement  of  char- 
acter. 

Let  the  boy  dream  on,  and  help  him  to  dream  by  sym- 
pathetically sharing  his  visions  with  him.  His  own 
visions  and  the  most  wonderful  visions  of  heroism  and 
adventure  dreamed  by  the  best  authors  should  fill  his  life 
during  the  most  important  stage  of  his  growth,  adoles- 
cence, when  the  elements  of  his  manhood  are  rushing 
into  his  life  and  require  an  outlet  in  the  ideal  life  as  a 
preparation  for  the  real  life  of  later  days. 

Dickens  recognises,  too,  in  this  story  the  great  truth 
so  little  used  by  educators,  that  the  child's  imagination  is 
not  restricted  by  any  conditions  of  impossibility  or  by 


280  DICKENS  AS  AN  EDUCATOR. 

any  laws  of  Nature  or  of  man.  The  ideal  transcends  the 
real,  the  desired  is  accomplished.  Development  is  rapid 
under  such  conditions. 

"  And  was  there  no  quarrelling-,"  asked  Mrs.  Lirriper, 
"  after  the  boy  and  his  boy   friend   had  gained   high   re- 
nown, and  unlimited  stores  of  gold,  and  had  married  Sera- 
phina  and  her  sister,  and  had  come  to  live  with  Gran  and 
Godfather  forever,  and  the  story  was  ended?  " 
"No!      Nobody  ever  quarrelled." 
"And  did  the  money  never  melt  away?" 
"  No!     Nobody  could  ever  spend  it  all." 
"  And  did  none  of  them  ever  grow  older?  " 
"  No!     Nobody  ever  grew  older  after  that." 
"  And  did  none  of  them  ever  die?  " 

"  O,  no,  no,  no.  Gran!  "  exclaimed  our  dear  boy,  laying 
his  cheek  upon  her  breast,  and  drawing  her  closer  to  him. 
"  Nobody  ever  died." 

"  Ah,  Major,  Major!  "  says  Mrs.  Lirriper,  smiling  be- 
nignly upon  me,  "  this  beats  our  stories.  Let  us  end  with 
the  Boy's  Story,  Major,  for  the  Boy's  Story  is  the  best  that 
is  ever  told." 

Miss  Pupford's  school  in  Tom  Tiddler's  Ground  re- 
veals the  foolish  conventional  formalism  of  some  teachers 
before  their  pupils ;  exposes  the  pretences  of  some  teachers 
in  private  schools — "  Miss  Pupford's  assistant  with  the 
Parisian  accent,  who  never  conversed  with  a  Parisian  and 
never  was  out  of  England  " ;  and  condemns  the  practice 
of  sending  mere  children  long  distances  from  home  to 
be  trained  and  educated :  "  Kitty  Kimmeens  had  to  re- 
main behind  in  Miss  Pupford's  school  during  the  holidays, 
because  her  friends  and  relations  were  all  in  India,  far 
away." 

In  Edwin  Drood  Dickens  had  begun  a  description  of 
the  school :  "  On  the  trim  gate  inclosing  the  courtyard  of 
which  is  a  resplendent  brass  plate  flashing  forth  the  leg- 
end :  '  Seminary  for  Young  Ladies.     Miss  Twinkleton.'  " 

The  chief  thing  revealed  by  the  brief  description  given 
of  it  is  the  formal  conventionality  of  most  teachers  in 
such  institutions,  the  unreality  of  manner  and  tone  and 
character  shown  by  most  teachers  in  the  schoolroom. 

How  much  greater  Miss  Twinkleton's  power  would 


MINOR   SCHOOLS.  281 

have  been  to  help  in  developing  human  hearts  and  heads, 
if  she  could  have  been  more  truly  human  during  the  day ! 
She  did  not  deceive  the  young  ladies  either  by  her  form- 
alism. They  merely  said,  "  What  a  pretending  old  thing 
Miss  Twinkleton  is !  '• 

When  the  rumour  of  the  quarrel  between  Neville  Land- 
less and  Edwin  Drood  reached  the  seminary,  and  began 
to  cause  dangerous  excitement  among  the  young  ladies, 
Miss  Twinkleton  deemed  it  her  duty  to  quiet  their  minds. 

It  was  reserved  for  Miss  T^vinkleton  to  tone  down  the 
public  mind  of  the  Xuns'  House.  That  lady,  therefore, 
entering  in  a  statelj"  manner  what  plebeians  might  have 
called  the  schoolroom,  but  what,  in  the  patrician  language 
of  the  head  of  the  Nuns'  House,  was  euphuistically,  not  to 
say  roundaboutedly,  denominated  "  the  apartment  allotted 
to  study,"  and  saying  with  a  forensic  air,  "Ladies!  "  all 
rose.  Mrs.  Tisher  at  the  same  time  grouped  herself  behind 
her  chief,  as  representing  Queen  Elizabeth's  first  historical 
female  friend  at  Tilbury  Fort.  Miss  Twinkleton  then  pro- 
ceeded to  remark  that  Rumour,  ladies,  had  been  repre- 
sented by  the  Bard  of  Avon — needless  were  it  to  mention 
the  immortal  Shakespeare,  also  called  the  Swan  of  his  na- 
tive river,  not  improbably  with  some  reference  to  the  an- 
cient superstition  that  that  bird  of  graceful  plumage  (Miss 
Jennings  will  please  stand  upright)  sung  sweetly  on  the 
approach  of  death,  for  which  we  have  no  ornithological 
authority — Rumour,  ladies,  had  been  represented  by  that 
bard — hem!  — 

"  Who  drew 
The  celebrated  Jew," 

as  painted  full  of  tongues.  Rumour  in  Cloisterham 
(Miss  Ferdinand  will  honour  me  with  her  attention)  was 
no  exception  to  the  great  limner's  portrait  of  Rumour  else- 
where. A  slight  fracas  between  two  young  gentlemen  oc- 
curring last  night  within  a  hundred  miles  of  these  peace- 
ful walls  (Miss  Ferdinand,  being  apparently  incorrigible, 
will  have  the  kindness  to  write  out  this  evening,  in  the 
original  language,  the  first  four  fables  of  our  vivacious 
neighbour,  Monsieur  La  Fontaine)  had  been  very  grossly 
exaggerated  by  Rumour's  voice.  In  the  first  alarm  and 
anxiety  arising  from  our  sympathy  with  a  sweet  young 
friend,  not  wholly  to  be  dissociated  from  one  of  the  gladi- 


282  DICKENS  AS  AN  EDUCATOR. 

ators  in  the  bloodless  arena  in  question  (the  impropriety 
of  jNIiss  Keynolds's  appearing  to  stab  herself  in  the  band 
with  a  i3in  is  far  too  obvious,  and  too  glaringly  unladylike 
to  be  pointed  out),  we  descended  from  our  maiden  eleva- 
tion to  discuss  this  uncongenial  and  this  unfit  theme.  Re- 
sponsible inquiries  having*  assured  us  that  it  was  but  one 
of  those  "  airy  nothings  "  pointed  at  by  the  poet  (whose 
name  and  date  of  birth  Miss  Giggles  will  supply  within 
half  an  hour),  we  would  now  discard  the  subject,  and  con- 
centrate our  minds  upon  the  grateful  labours  of  the  day. 

The  unnatural  formalism  of  her  manner  and  her  lan- 
guage are  properly  held  up  to  ridicule  by  Dickens. 

He  incidentally  shows  the  great  blunder  of  interrupt- 
ing a  lesson  to  censure  a  pupil,  the  weakness  of  having 
to  demand  attention,  and  the  error  of  punishing  by  im- 
positions to  be  memorized  or  written.  What  a  terrible 
misuse  it  is  of  the  literature  that  should  always  be  attrac- 
tive and  inspiring  to  have  it  associated  with  punishment ! 
He  exposes  the  greater  crime  of  making  children  commit 
to  memory  selections  from  the  Bible  as  a  punishment  in 
Dombey  and  Son,  and  the  association  of  the  Bible  with 
tasks  in  Our  Mutual  Friend. 

The  Schoolboy's  Story  deals  with  the  problems  of  nu- 
trition, coercion,  robbing  a  boy  of  his  holidays,  the  dec- 
laration of  perpetual  warfare  between  pupils  and  teachers 
in  the  olden  days,  and  the  surprise  of  the  boys  when  they 
found  that  one  of  their  teachers  had  a  true  and  tender 
heart  (what  a  commentaiy  on  teachers  that  boys  should 
be  surprised  at  their  being  true  and  good!),  and  how  to 
treat  children  as  Old  Cheeseman  did,  when  he  inherited 
his  fortune  and  married  Jane,  and  took  the  disconsolate 
boys  home  to  his  own  house,  when  they  were  condemned 
to  spend  their  holidays  at  school. 

In  Our  School  the  chief  pedagogical  lessons  are: 
the  man's  remembrance  of  the  pug  dog  in  the  entry  at 
the  first  school  he  attended,  and  his  utter  forgetfulness 
of  the  mistress  of  the  establishment;  the  folly  of  ex- 
ternal polishing  or  memory  polishing  on  which  "  the 
rust  has  long  since  accumulated " ;  the  gross  wrong  of 
allowing  an  ignorant  and  brutal  man  to  be  a  teacher — 


MIXOR  SCHOOLS.  283 

"  The  only  branches  of  education  with  which  the  master 
showed  the  least  acquaintance  were  ruling  and  corporally 
punishing " ;  the  deadening  injustice  of  showing  par- 
tiality, whether  on  account  of  a  boy's  parentage  or  for 
any  other  reason;  sjTupathy  for  "holiday  stoppers";  the 
interest  all  children  should  take  in  keeping  and  training 
pet  animals;  the  advantages  to  boys  of  having  to  con- 
struct "  houses  and  instruments  of  performance "  for 
these  pets — "  some  of  those  who  made  houses  and  in- 
vented appliances  for  their  performing  mice  in  school 
have  since  made  railroads,  engines,  and  telegraphs,  the 
chairman  has  erected  mills  and  bridges  in  Australia  " ;  the 
fact  that  "  we  all  liked  Maxby  the  tutor,  for  he  had  a 
good  knowledge  of  boys";  and  that  teachers  should  be 
very  particular  about  their  personal  neatness,  because 
children  note  so  accurately  every  detail  of  dress  and  man- 
ner. This  is  shown  by  the  reminiscences  about  Maxby, 
the  Latin  master,  and  the  dancing  master.  The  ungen- 
erous rivalry  often  existing  between  schools,  and  schools 
of  thought,  too,  was  pointed  out :  "  There  was  another 
school  not  far  off,  and  of  course  our  school  could  have 
nothing  to  say  to  that  school.  It  is  mostly  the  way  with 
schools,  whether  of  boys  or  men." 

"  The  world  had  little  reason  to  be  proud  of  Our 
School,  and  has  done  much  better  since  in  that  way,  and 
will  do  far  better  yet."  This  closing  sentence  of  the 
sketch  is  very  suggestive. 

Dickens  described  one  school  that  he  visited  in  Amer- 
ica in  his  American  Xotes,  evidently  in  order  to  show  the 
need  of  more  care  than  was  then  taken  in  the  choice  of 
matter  for  the  pupils  to  read. 

I  was  only  present  in  one  of  these  establishments  dur- 
ing the  hours  of  instruction.  In  the  boys'  department, 
which  was  full  of  little  urchins  (varying  in  their  ages,  I 
should  say,  from  six  years  old  to  ten  or  twelve),  the 
master  offered  to  institute  an  extemporary  examination 
of  the  pupils  in  algebra,  a  proposal  which,  as  I  was  by  no 
means  confident  of  my  ability  to  detect  mistakes  in  that 
science,  I  declined  with  some  alarm.  In  the  girls'  school 
reading  was  proposed,  and  as  I  felt  tolerably  equal  to  that 


284  DICKENS  AS  AN  EDUCATOR. 

art  I  expressed  my  willing-ness  to  hear  a  class.  Books 
were  distributed  accordingly,  and  some  half  dozen  girls 
relieved  each  other  in  reading  paragraphs  from  English 
history.  But  it  seemed  to  be  a  dry  compilation,  infinitely 
above  their  powers;  and  when  they  had  blundered  through 
three  or  four  dreary  passages  concerning  the  treaty  of 
Amiens,  and  other  thrilling  topics  of  the  same  nature 
(obviously  without  comprehending  ten  words),  I  expressed 
myself  quite  satisfied.  It  is  very  possible  that  they  only 
mounted  to  this  exalted  stave  in  the  ladder  of  learning  for 
the  astonishment  of  a  visitor,  and  that  at  other  times  they 
keep  upon  its  lower  rounds;  but  I  should  have  been  much 
better  pleased  and  satisfied  if  I  had  heard  them  exercised 
in  simpler  lessons,  which  they  understood. 

"  The  world  has  done  better  since,  and  will  do  far 
better  yet "  in  the  choice  of  reading  matter  for  children. 

The  school  recalled  by  m^emory  in  connection  with  the 
other  ghosts  of  his  childhood  in  The  Haunted  House  was 
described  briefly,  but  the  description  is  full  of  sugges- 
tiveness. 

Then  I  was  sent  to  a  great  cold,  bare  school  of  big 
boys;  where  everything  to  eat  and  wear  was  thick  and 
clumpy,  without  being  enough;  where  everybody,  large 
and  small,  was  cruel;  where  the  boys  knew  all  about  the 
sale  before  I  got  there  [his  father's  furniture  had  been  sold 
for  debt],  and  asked  me  what  I  had  fetched,  and  who  had 
bought  me,  and  hooted  at  me,  "  Going,  going,  gone." 

The  inartistic  bareness  of  the  school,  the  tasteless 
clothing,  the  unattractive,  unsatisfying  food,  the  pervad- 
ing atmosphere  of  cruelty,  and  the  heartlessness  of  the 
boys  in  tearing  open  the  wounds  of  the  sensitive  new  boy 
— are  all  condemned. 


CHAPTER    XVI. 

MISCELLANEOUS    EDUCATIONAL    PRINCIPLES. 

The  need  of  apperception  and  correlation  are  shown 
in  the  result  of  Paul  Dombey's  first  lessons  under  Miss 
Cornelia  Blimber,  and  in  the  same  book  in  the  description 
of  the  learning  Briggs  carried  away  with  him.  It  was  like 
an  ill-arranged  luggage,  so  tightly  packed  that  he  couldn't 
get  at  anything  he  wanted.  The  absolute  necessity  for 
fixing  apperceptive  centres  of  emotion  and  thought  in 
the  lives  of  children  by  experience  is  shown  in  the  case 
of  Seville  Landless  in  Edwin  Drood.  His  early  life  had 
been  so  barren  that,  as  he  told  his  tutor,  "  It  has  caused 
me  to  be  utterly  wanting  in  I  don't  know  what  emo- 
tions, or  remembrances,  or  good  instincts — I  have  not 
even  a  name  for  the  thing,  you  see — that  you  have  had  to 
work  upon  in  other  young  men  to  whom  you  have  been 
accustomed." 

Dickens  emphasized  the  fact  that  the  lack  of  apper- 
ceptive centres  of  an  improper  kind  is  a  great  advantage. 

That  heart  where  self  has  found  no  place  and  raised 
no  throne  is  slow  to  recognise  its  ugly  presence  when 
it  looks  upon  it.  As  one  possessed  of  an  evil  spirit  was 
held  in  old  time  to  be  alone  conscious  of  the  lurking 
demon  in  the  breasts  of  other  men,  so  kindred  vices  know 
each  other  in  their  hiding  places  every  day,  w^hen  virtue 
is  incredulous  and  blind. 

There  is  no  more  suggestive  work  on  the  contents  of 
children's  minds  than  Bleak  House.  When  Poor  Jo  was 
summoned  to  give  evidence  at  the  inquest  he  was  ques- 
tioned in  regard  to  himself  and  his  theology.  The  re- 
sults were  startling. 

285 


286  DICKENS  AS  AN  EDUCATOR. 

Name,  Jo.  Nothing"  else  that  he  knows  on.  Don't 
know  that  everybody  has  two  names.  Never  heerd  of  sich 
a  think.  Don't  know  that  Jo  is  short  for  a  long-er  name. 
Thinks  it  long  enough  for  him.  He  don't  find  no  fault 
with  it.  Spell  it?  No.  He  can't  spell  it.  No  father,  no 
mother,  no  friends.  Never  been  to  school.  What's  home? 
Knows  a  broom's  a  broom,  and  knows  it's  wicked  to  tell 
a  lie.  Don't  recollect  who  told  him  about  the  broom,  or 
about  the  lie,  but  knows  both.  Can't  exactly  say  what'll 
be  done  to  him  after  he's  dead  if  he  tells  a  lie  to  the  gen- 
tlemen here,  but  believes  it'll  be  something  wery  bad  to 
punish  him,  and  serve  him  right — and  so  he'll  tell  tha 
truth. 

Jo  sweeps  his  crossing  all  day  long,  unconscious  of  the 
link,  if  any  link  there  be.  He  sums  up  his  mental  con- 
dition, when  asked  a  question,  by  replying  that  he  "  don't 
know  nothink."  He  knows  that  it's  hard  to  keep  the 
mud  off  the  crossing  in  dirty  weather,  and  harder  still  to 
live  by  doing  it.  Nobody  taught  him,  even  that  much; 
he  found  it  out. 

Jo  comes  out  of  Tom-all-Alone's,  meeting  the  tardy 
morning,  which  is  always  late  in  getting  down  there,  and 
munches  his  dirty  bit  of  bread  as  he  comes  along.  His 
way  lying  through  many  streets,  and  the  houses  not  yet 
being  open,  he  sits  down  to  breakfast  on  the  doorstep  of 
the  Society  for  the  Propagation  of  the  Gospel  in  Foreign 
Parts,  and  gives  it  a  brush  when  he  has  finished,  as  an 
acknowledgment  of  the  accommodation.  He  admires  the 
size  of  the  edifice,  and  wonders  what  it's  all  about.  He 
has  no  idea,  poor  wretch,  of  the  spiritual  destitution  of  a 
coral  reef  in  the  Pacific,  or  what  it  costs  to  look  up  the 
precious   souls  among   the   cocoanuts   and   breadfruits. 

He  goes  to  his  crossing,  and  begins  to  lay  it  out  for 
the  day.  The  town  awakes;  the  great  teetotum  is  set  up 
for  its  daily  spin  and  whirl;  all  that  unaccountable  reading 
and  writing,  which  has  been  suspended  for  a  few  hours, 
recommences.  Jo  and  the  other  lower  animals  get  on  in 
the  unintelligible  mess  as  they  can.  It  is  market  day. 
The  blinded  oxen,  overgoaded,  overdriven,  never  guided, 
run  into  wrong  places  and  are  beaten  out;  and  plunge, 
red-eyed  and  foaming,  at  stone  walls;  and  often  sorely  hurt 
the  innocent,  and  often  sorely  hurt  themselves.  Very  like 
Jo  and  his  order;  very,  very  like! 

A  band  of  music  comes  and  plays.     Jo  listens  to  it.     So 


MISCELLANEOUS  EDUCATIONAL  PRINCIPLES.  287 

does  a  dog" — a  drover's  dog,  waiting  for  his  master  outside 
a  butcher's  shop,  and  evidently  thinking  about  those  sheep 
he  has  had  upon  his  mind  for  some  hours,  and  is  happily 
rid  of.  He  seems  perplexed  respecting  three  or  four;  can't 
remember  where  he  left  them;  looks  up  and  down  the 
street,  as  half  expecting  to  see  them  astray;  suddenly 
pricks  up  his  ears  and  remembers  all  about  it.  A  thor- 
oughly vagabond  dog,  accustomed  to  low  company  and 
public  houses;  a  terrific  dog  to  sheep;  ready  at  a  whistle  to 
scamper  over  their  backs,  and  tear  out  mouthfuls  of  their 
wool;  but  an  educated,  improved,  developed  dog.  who  has 
been  taught  his  duties  and  knows  how  to  discharge  them. 
He  and  Jo  listen  to  the  music,  probably  with  much  the 
same  amount  of  animal  satisfaction;  likewise,  as  to  awak- 
ened association,  aspiration,  or  regret,  melancholy  or  joy- 
ful reference  to  things  beyond  the  senses,  they  are  prob- 
ably upon  a  par.  But,  otherwise,  how  far  above  the  human 
listener  is  the  brute  I 

Turn  that  dog's  descendants  wild,  like  Jo,  and  in  a 
very  few^  years  they  will  so  degenerate  that  they  will  lose 
even  their  bark — but  not  their  bite. 

When  Lady  Dedlock  met  Jo,  she  asked  him: 

"  Are  you  the  boy  I've  read  of  in  the  papers?  " 

"  I  don't  know,"  says  Jo,  staring  moodily  at  the  veil, 

"  nothink  about  no  papers.     I  don't  know  nothink  about 

nothink  at  all." 

When  Glister,  Mr.  Snagsby's  servant,  got  him  some 
food,  she  said: 

"  Are  you  hungry?  " 

"Jistf"  says  Jo. 

"  "What's  gone  of  your  father  and  your  mother,  eh?  " 

Jo  stops  in  the  middle  of  a  bite,  and  looks  petrified. 
For  this  orphan  charge  of  the  Christian  saint  whose  shrine 
was  at  Tooting,  has  patted  him  on  the  shoulder;  and  it  is 
the  first  time  in  his  life  that  any  decent  hand  had  been  so 
laid  upon   him. 

"  I  never  know'd  nothink  about  'em,"  saj's  Jo. 

"  No  more  didn't  I  of  mine,"  cries  Guster. 

When  Allan  Woodcourt  took  him  to  Mr.  George's  and 
had  his  wants  attended  to,  he  told  Jo  to  be  sure  and  tell 
him  the  truth  always. 


288  DICKENS  AS  AN  EDUCATOR. 

"  Wishermaydie,  if  I  don't,"  said  Jo.  "  I  never  was  in 
no  other  trouble  at  all,  sir — 'cept  knowin'  nothink  and 
starvation." 

When  Allan  saw  that  Jo  was  nearing  the  end,  he  said : 

"Jo!     Did  you  ever  know  a  prayer?" 

"  Never  know'd  nothink,  sir." 

"  Not  so  much  as  one  short  prayer?  " 

"  No,  sir.  Nothink  at  all.  Mr.  Chadband  he  was 
a-prayin'  wunst  at  Mr.  Snagsby's  and  I  heerd  him,  but  he 
sounded  as  if  he  wos  a-speakin'  to  hisself,  and  not  to  me. 
He  prayed  a  lot,  but  /  couldn't  make  out  nothink  on  it. 
Different  times,  there  was  other  genlmen  come  down  Tom- 
all-Alone's  a-prayin',  but  they  all  mostly  sed  as  the  t'other 
wuns  prayed  wrong,  and  all  mostly  sounded  to  be  a-talkin' 
to  theirselves,  or  a-passin'  blame  on  the  t'others,  and  not 
a-talkin'  to  us.  IFe  never  know'd  nothink.  /  never  know'd 
what  it  wos  all  about," 

No  ?  Mr.  Chadband,  your  long  sermon  about  "  the 
Terewth  "  found  no  place  in  Jo  in  which  to  rest ;  nothing 
to  which  it  could  attach  itself.  No  wonder  he  went 
asleep.  He  had  no  apperceptive  centres  in  his  experience 
or  his  training  to  which  your  kind  of  religious  teaching 
was  related. 

Poor  Jo!  He  was  the  first  great  illustration,  and  he 
is  still  the  best,  of  the  great  pedagogical  truth,  that  we 
see,  and  hear,  and  understand  in  all  that  is  around  us  only 
what  corresponds  to  what  we  are  within;  that  our  power 
to  see,  and  hear,  and  understand  increases  as  our  inner 
life  is  cultured  and  developed;  and  that  a  life  as  barren 
as  that  of  the  great  class  of  whom  Jo  was  made  the  type 
makes  it  impossible  to  comprehend  any  teaching  of  an 
abstract  kind.  This  revelation  is  of  course  most  valuable 
to  primary  teachers  in  cities. 

Dickens  showed  his  wonderful  insight  into  the  most 
profound  problems  of  psychologj^  in  his  great  character 
sketch  of  poor  Jo.  He  agreed  with  Herbart  regarding 
the  philosophy  of  apperception  so  far  as  it  related  to  in- 
tellectual culture,  but  he  painted  Jo  entirely  out  of  har- 
mony with  Herbart's  psychology  in  relation  to  soul  de- 
velopment. After  describing  Mr.  Chadband's  sermon  on 
"  Terewth  "  Dickens  says : 


MISCELLANEOUS  EDUCATIONAL   PRINCIPLES    289 

All  this  time  Jo  has  been  standing  on  the  spot  where 
he  woke  up,  ever  picking"  his  cap,  and  putting  bits  of  fur 
in  his  mouth.  He  spits  them  out  with  a  remorseful  air, 
for  he  feels  that  it  is  in  his  nature  to  be  an  unimprovable 
reprobate,  and  it's  no  good  his  trying  to  keep  awake,  for 
he  won't  never  know  nothink.  Though  it  may  be,  Jo,  that 
there  is  a  history  so  interesting  and  affecting  even  to  minds 
as  near  the  brutes  as  thine,  recording  deeds  done  on  this 
earth  for  common  men,  that  if  the  Chadbands,  removing 
their  own  persons  from  the  light,  would  but  show  it  thee 
in  simple  reverence,  would  but  leave  it  unimproved,  would 
but  regard  it  as  being  eloquent  enough  without  their  mod- 
est aid — it  might  hold  thee  awake,  and  thou  might  learn 
from  it  yet! 

Jo  never  heard  of  any  such  book.  Its  compilers,  and 
the  Reverend  Chadband,  are  all  one  to  him — except  that  he 
knows  the  Reverend  Chadband,  and  would  rather  run  away 
from  him  for  an  hour  than  hear  him  talk  for  five  minutes. 

When  Jo  was  eating  at  Mr.  Snagsby's  he  stopped  in 
the  m^iddle  of  his  bite  and  looked  petrified,  because  Guster 
patted  him  on  the  shoulder.  "  It  was  the  first  time  in  his 
life  that  any  decent  hand  had  been  so  laid  upon  him." 

In  The  Haunted  Man  the  six-year-old  child  was  de- 
scribed as  "  a  baby  savage,  a  young  monster,  a  child  who 
had  never  been  a  child,  a  creature  who  might  live  to  take 
the  outward  form  of  man,  but  who,  within,  would  live  and 
perish  a  mere  beast." 

Hugh,  the  splendid  young  animal  who  was  John  Wil- 
let's  stable  boy  in  Barnaby  Rudge,  was  as  deficient  of  most 
intellectual  and  spiritual  apperceptive  centres  as  poor  Jo. 
When  Mr.  Chester  asked  him  his  name  he  replied : 

"  I'd  tell  it  if  I  could.  I  can't.  I  have  always  been 
called  Hugh;  nothing  more.  I  never  knew  nor  saw,  nor 
thought  about  a  father;  and  I  was  a  boy  of  six — that's  not 
very  old— when  they  hung  my  mother  up  at  Tyburn  for 
a  couple  of  thousand  of  men  to  stare  at.  They  might  have 
let  her  live.     She  was  poor  enough." 

Little  George  Silverman's  mind  was  almost  a  blank 
when  his  mother  and  father  died.  He  had  been  brought 
up  in  a  cellar  at  Preston.  He  hardly  knew  what  sunlight 
was.     His  mother's  laugh  in  her  fever  scared  him,  be- 


290  DICKENS  AS  AN  EDUCATOR. 

cause  it  was  the  first  laugh  he  had  ever  heard.  When  dis- 
covered alone  with  the  bodies  of  his  father  and  mother  in 
the  cellar,  one  of  the  horrified  bystanders  said  to  him: 

"  Do  you  know  your  father  and  mother  are  both  dead 
of  fever  ?  "  and  he  replied : 

"  I  don't  know  what  it  is  to  be  dead.  I  am  hungry 
and  thirsty." 

After  he  had  been  supplied  with  food  and  drink  he 
told  Mr.  Hawkyard  that  "  he  didn't  feel  cold,  or  hungry, 
or  thirsty,"  and  in  relating  the  story  in  manhood  he  said : 

That  was  the  whole  round  of  human  feelings,  as  far 
as  I  knew,  except  the  pain  of  being  beaten.  To  that  time 
I  had  never  had  the  faintest  impression  of  duty.  I  had  no 
knowledge  whatever  that  there  was  anything  lovely  in  this 
life.  When  I  had  occasionally  slunk  up  the  cellar  steps  into 
the  street,  and  glared  in  at  shop  windows,  1  had  done  so 
with  no  higher  feelings  than  we  may  suppose  to  animate  a 
mangy  young  dog  or  wolf  cub.  It  is  equally  the  fact  that 
I  had  never  been  alone,  in  the  sense  of  holding  unselfish 
converse  with  myself.  I  had  been  solitary  often  enough, 
but  nothing  better. 

Eedlaw,  in  The  Haunted  Man,  said  to  the  poor  boy 
who  came  to  his  room: 

"  What  is  your  name  ?  " 

"Got  none." 

"  Where  do  you  live  ?  " 

"Live!     What's  that?" 

Such  pictures  were  not  drawn  to  entertain,  or  to  add 
artistic  effect  to  his  stories.  They  were  written  to  teach 
the  world  of  wealth  and  culture  that  all  around  it  were 
thousands  of  human  souls  with  as  little  opportunity  for 
development  as  young  animals  have;  with  defined  apper- 
ceptive centres  of  cold,  hunger,  thirst,  and  pain  only. 

Dickens  makes  a  strong  contrast  between  the  condition 
of  the  mental  and  spiritual  apperceptive  centres  in  the 
city  boy  as  compared  with  the  country  boy,  in  a  conversa- 
tion between  Phil  Squod  and  Mr.  George. 

"  And  so,  Phil,"  says  George  of  the  Shooting  Gallery, 
after  several  turns  in  silence,  "  you  were  dreaming  of  the 
country  last  night?  " 


MISCELLANEOUS   EDUCATIONAL   PRINCIPLES.    291 

Phil,  b^'  the  bye,  said  as  much,  in  a  tone  of  surprise,  as 
he  scrambled  out  of  bed. 

"  Yes,    g-uv'ner." 

"  What  was  it  like?" 

"  I  hardly  know  what  it  was  like,  guv'ner,"  said  Phil, 
considering. 

"  How  did  you  know  it  was  the   country?  " 

"  On  account  of  the  grass,  I  think.  And  the  swans  upon 
it,"  says  Phil,  after  further  consideration. 

"  What  were  the  swans  doing  on  the  grass?  " 

"  They  was  a-eating  of  it,  I  expect,"  says  Phil. 

"  The  country,"  says  Mr.  George,  plying  his  knife  and 
fork;  "  why,  I  suppose  you  never  clapped  your  eyes  on  the 
country,   Phil?  " 

"  I  see  the  marshes  once,"  said  Phil,  contentedly  eating 
his  breakfast. 

"What  marshes?" 

"  The  marshes,  commander,"  returns  Phil. 

"Where  are  they?  " 

"I  don't  know  where  they  are,"  says  Phil;  "but  I  see 
*em,  guv'ner.  They  was  flat.     And  miste." 

Governor  and  commander  are  interchangeable  terms 
•vrith  Phil,  expressive  of  the  same  respect  and  deference, 
and  applicable  to  nobody  but  Mr.  George. 

"  I  was  born  in  the  country,  Phil." 

"Was  you,  indeed,  commander?" 

"  Yes.     And  bred  there." 

Phil  elevates  his  one  eyebrow,  and  after  respectfully 
staring  at  his  master  to  express  interest,  swallows  a  great 
gulp  of  coffee,  still  staring  at  him. 

"  There's  not  a  bird's  note  that  I  don't  know,"  says  Mr. 
George.  "  Not  many  an  English  leaf  or  berry  that  I 
couldn't  name.  Not  many  a  tree  that  I  couldn't  climb  yet, 
if  I  was  put  to  it.  I  was  a  real  country  boy  once.  My 
good  mother  lived  in  the  country.  Do  you  want  to  see  the 
country,  Phil?  " 

"  N-no,  I  don't  know  as  I  do,  particular." 

"  The  town's  enough  for  you,  eh?  " 

"  Why,  you  see,  commander,"  says  Phil,  "  I  ain't  ac- 
quainted with  anj'think  else,  and  I  doubt  if  I  ain't  a-getting 
too  old  to  take  to  novelties." 

"  How  old  are  you,  Phil?  " 

Phil's  answer  is  intended  to  indicate  the  lack  of  even 
mathematical  power  in  those  who,  like  Phil,  never  had 


292  DICKENS  AS  AN  EDUCATOR. 

any  training  of  the  imagination,  nor  any  other  training 
to  define  their  apperceptive  centres  of  number  beyond  ten. 

"  I'm  something  with  a  eight  in  it.  It  can't  be  eighty. 
Nor  yet  eighteen.  It's  betwixt  'em  somewheres.  I  was 
just  eight,  agreeable  to  the  parish  calculation,  when  I 
went  with  the  tinker.  That  was  April  Fool  Day.  I  was 
able  to  count  up  to  ten;  and  when  April  Fool  Day  came 
round  again  I  says  to  myself,  '  Now,  old  chap,  you're  one 
and  a  eight  in  it.'  April  Fool  Day  after  that  I  says,  '  Now, 
old  chap,  you're  two  and  a  eight  in  it.'  In  course  of  time 
I  come  to  ten  and  a  eight  in  it;  two  tens  and  a  eight  in  it. 
When  it  got  so  high  it  got  the  upper  hand  of  me;  but  this 
is  how  I  always  know  there's  a  eight  in  it." 

The  folly  of  trying  to  make  a  man  moral  by  precept 
alone;  the  fact  that  character  is  developed  by  what  we 
do,  by  true  living,  by  what  goes  out  in  action,  not  by  what 
comes  in  in  maxims  or  theories,  is  shown  in  Martin  Chuz- 
zlewit. 

It  has  been  remarked  that  Mr.  Pecksniff  was  a  moral 
man.  So  he  was.  Perhaps  there  never  was  a  more  moral 
man  than  Mr,  Pecksniff,  especially  in  his  conversation  and 
correspondence.  It  was  once  said  of  him  by  a  homely 
admirer  that  he  had  a  Fortunatus's  purse  of  gold  senti- 
ments in  his  inside.  In  this  particular  he  was  like  the  girl 
in  the  fairy  tale,  except  that  if  they  were  not  actual  dia- 
monds which  fell  from  his  lips,  they  were  the  very  bright- 
est paste  and  shone  prodigiously.  He  was  a  most  exem- 
plary man;  fuller  of  virtuous  precept  than  a  copy  book. 
Some  people  likened  him  to  a  direction  post,  which  is  al- 
ways telling  the  way  to  a  place,  and  never  goes  there. 

The  best  of  architects  and  land  surveyors  kept  a  horse, 
in  whom  the  enemies  already  mentioned  more  than  once 
in  these  pages  pretended  to  detect  a  fanciful  resemblance 
to  his  master.  Not  in  his  outward  person,  for  he  was  a 
raw-boned,  haggard  horse,  always  on  a  much  shorter  allow- 
ance of  corn  than  Mr,  Pecksniff;  but  in  his  moral  character, 
wherein,  said  they,  he  was  full  of  promise,  but  of  no  per- 
formance. He  was  always,  in  a  manner,  going  to  go,  and 
never  going. 

One  of  the  worst  results  that  can  follow  a  system  of 
training  is  to  make  a  man  a  hypocrite.     It  is  nearly  as 


MISCELLANEOUS  EDUCATIONAL  PRINCIPLES.    293 

bad  to  store  a  mind  with  good  thoughts  or  fill  a  heart 

with  good  feelings  without  giving  the  character  the  tend- 
ency by  practical  experience  to  carry  into  efEect  so  far 
as  possible  its  good  feelings  and  high  purposes.  Mr.  Peck- 
sniff was  a  moral  monstrosity.  We  should  create  no  more 
Pecksniffs.  A  different  ideal  is  taught  in  the  remark 
made  by  Martin  Chuzzlewit  to  Mary,  "  Endeavouring  to 
be  anything  that's  good,  and  being  it,  is,  with  you,  all 
one." 

Executive  training  is  emphasized  in  Nicholas  Xickle- 
by.  Old  Ealph  Xickleby  said  of  Nicholas :  "The  old 
story — always  thinking,  and  never  doing.''  The  same 
thought  is  expressed  very  clearly  in  the  pregnant  sen- 
tence written  about  Sydney  Carton  in  A  Tale  of  Two 
Cities :  "  Sadly,  sadly,  the  sun  rose ;  it  rose  upon  no  sadder 
sight  than  the  man  of  good  abilities  and  good  emotions, 
incapable  of  their  directed  exercise."  The  saddest  sight 
in  the  world  is  a  man  or  woman  using  power  for  evil.  It 
is  nearly  as  sad  to  see  a  man  or  woman  with  power,  but 
without  power  to  use  it  wisely. 

In  A  Tale  of  Two  Cities  he  caricatures  admirably  the 
class  who  cling  to  old  customs  and  conventions,  and  de- 
cline even  to  discuss  changes  or  improvements,  in  his 
description  of  Tellson's  Bank. 

Tellson's  Bank  by  Temple  Bar  was  an  old-fashioned 
place,  even  in  the  year  one  thousand  seven  hundred  and 
eighty.  It  was  very  small,  very  dark,  very  ugly,  very  in- 
commodious. It  was  an  old-fashioned  place,  moreover,  in 
the  moral  attribute  that  the  partners  in  the  house  were 
proud  of  its  smallness,  proud  of  its  darkness,  proud  of  its 
uo-liness,  proud  of  its  incommodiousness.  They  were  even 
boastful  of  its  eminence  in  those  particulars,  and  were 
fired  by  an  express  conviction  that,  if  it  were  less  objec- 
tionable, it  would  be  less  respectable.  This  was  no  passive 
belief,  but  an  active  weapon  which  they  flashed  at  more 
convenient  places  of  business.  Tellson's  (they  said)  wanted 
no  elbowroom,  Tellson's  wanted  no  light.  Tellson's  wanted 
no  embellishment.  Noakes  and  Co.'s  might,  or  Snooks 
Brothers'  might;    but  Tellson's,  thank  heaven! 

Any  one  of  these  partners  would  have  disinherited  his 
son  on  the  question  of  rebuilding  Tellson's.  In  this  respect 
20 


294  DICKENS  AS  AN  EDUCATOR. 

the  house  was  much  on  a  par  with  the  country;  which  did 
very  often  disinherit  its  sons  for  suggesting  improvements 
in  laws  and  customs  that  had  long  been  highly  objection- 
able, but  were  only  the  more  respectable. 

Every  child  should  get  into  his  consciousness  by  ex- 
perience, not  by  theory,  the  idea  that  he  is  expected  to  do 
his  share  in  the  improvement  of  his  environment.  The 
v7orst  conception  he  can  get  is  that  "  whatever  is  is 
right " ;  that  things  can  not  be  improved.  Every  child 
should  be  encouraged  to  make  suggestions  for  the  im- 
provement of  his  own  environment  and  conditions  in  the 
schoolroom,  in  the  yard,  in  the  details  of  class  manage- 
ment, or  in  anything  else  that  he  thinks  he  can  improve. 

The  closing  sentence  of  Our  School  should  ring  always 
in  the  minds  of  teachers,  especially  the  last  clause :  "  And 
will  do  far  better  yet." 

Dickens  had  implicit  faith  in  even  weak  humanity, 
and  taught  the  hopeful  truth,  that  every  man  and  every 
child  may  be  improved,  if  the  men  and  women  most  di- 
rectly associated  with  them  are  wise  and  loving.  Harriet 
Carker  said  to  Mr.  Morfin: 

"  Oh,  sir,  after  what  I  have  seen,  let  me  conjure  you, 
if  you  are  in  any  place  of  power,  and  are  ever  wronged, 
never  for  any  wrong  inflict  punishment  that  can  not  be 
recalled;  while  there  is  a  God  above  us  to  work  changes  in 
the  hearts  he  made." 

The  Goblin  of  the  Bell  said  to  Toby  Veck  in  The 
Chimes : 

"  Who  turns  his  back  upon  the  fallen  and  disfigured 
of  his  kind;  abandons  them  as  vile;  and  does  not  trace 
and  track  with  pitying  eyes  the  unfenced  precipice  by 
which  they  fell  from  good,  grasping  in  their  fall  some 
tufts  and  shreds  of  that  lost  soil,  and  clinging  to  them 
still  when  bruised  and  dying  in  the  gulf  below,  does  wrong 
to  Heaven  and  man,  to  time  and  to  eternity." 

The  influence  of  l^ature  on  the  awakening  mind  of 
the  child  was  outlined  in  A   Child's  Dream  of  a   Star. 

These  children  used  to  wonder  all  day  long.  They 
wondered  at  the  beauty  of  the  flowers;  they  wondered  at 


MISCELLANEOUS  EDUCATIONAL   PRINCIPLES.    295 

the  heig-ht  and  blueness  of  the  sky;  they  wondered  at  the 
depth  of  the  bright  water;  they  wondered  at  the  goodness 
and  the  power  of  God  who  made  the  lovely  world. 

Nature  is  the  great  centre  of  interest  to  the  child,  and 
it  may  be  the  child's  first  true  revealer  of  God,  if  adult- 
hood does  not  impiously  come  between  the  child  and  God 
by  trying  to  give  him  a  word  God  for  his  intellect  too 
soon  to  take  the  place  of  the  true  God  of  his  imagination. 

Dickens's  best  characters  loved  Xature.  Esther,  when 
recovering  from  her  illness,  said: 

I  found  every  breath  of  air,  and  everj*  scent,  and 
every  flower  and  leaf  and  blade  of  grass,  and  every  passing 
cloud,  and  everything  in  Nature,  more  beautiful  and  won- 
derful to  me  than  I  had  ever  found  it  yet.  This  was  my 
first  gain  from  my  illness.  How  little  I  had  lost,  when  the 
wide  world  was  so  full  of  delight  to  me! 

The  deep,  spiritual  influences  of  Nature  are  revealed 
in  the  effects  of  life  in  the  growing  country  on  Oliver 
Twist. 

Who  can  describe  the  pleasure  and  delight,  the  peace 
of  mind  and  soft  tranquility,  the  sickly  boy  felt  in  the 
balmy  air,  and  among  the  green  hills  and  rich  woods  of  an 
inland  village!  Who  can  tell  how  scenes  of  peace  and 
quietude  sink  into  the  minds  of  pain-worn  dwellers  in 
close  and  noisy  places,  and  carry  their  own  freshness  deep 
into  their  jaded  hearts!  Men  who  have  lived  in  crowded, 
pent-up  streets,  through  lives  of  toil,  and  who  have  never 
wished  for  change;  men,  to  whom  custom  has  indeed  been 
second  nature,  and  who  have  come  almost  to  love  each  brick 
and  stone  that  formed  the  narrow  boundaries  of  their  daily 
v.alks;  even  thej',  with  the  hand  of  death  upon  them,  have 
been  known  to  yearn  at  last  for  one  short  glimpse  of  Na- 
ture's face;  and,  carried  from  the  scenes  of  their  old  pains 
and  pleasures,  have  seemed  to  pass  at  once  into  a  new 
state  of  being.  Crawling  forth  from  day  to  day,  to  some 
green  sunny  spot,  they  have  had  such  memories  wakened 
up  within  them  by  the  sight  of  sky,  and  hill,  and  plain, 
and  glistening  water,  that  a  foretaste  of  heaven  itself  has 
soothed  their  quick  decline,  and  they  have  sunk  into  their 
tombs  as  peacefully  as  the  sun,  Avhose  setting  they  watched 
from  their  lonely  chamber  window  but  a  few  hours  before, 


296  DICKENS   AS  AN   EDUCATOR. 

faded  from  their  dim  and  feeble  sight!  The  memories 
which  peaceful  country  scenes  call  up  are  not  of  this  world, 
nor  of  its  thoug-hts  and  hopes.  Their  gentle  influence  may 
teach  us  how  to  weave  fresh  garlands  for  the  graves  of 
those  we  love — may  purify  our  thoughts,  and  bear  down 
before  it  old  enmity  and  hatred;  but  beneath  all  this  there 
lingers,  in  the  least  reflective  mind,  a  vague  and  half- 
formed  consciousness  of  having  held  such  feelings  long 
before,  in  some  remote  and  distant  time,  which  calls  up 
solemn  thoughts  of  distant  times  to  come,  and  bends  down 
pride  and  worldliness  beneath  it. 

It  was  a  lovely  spot  to  which  they  repaired.  Oliver, 
w^hose  days  had  been  spent  among  squalid  crowds,  and  in 
the  midst  of  noise  and  brawling,  seemed  to  enter  on  a  new- 
existence  there. 

In  the  story  of  The  Five  Sisters  of  York  Alice  said  to 
her  sisters : 

"Nature's  own  blessings  are  the  proper  goods  of  life,  and 
we  raay  share  them  sinlessly  together.  To  die  is  our  heavj- 
portion,  but,  oh,  let  us  die  with  life  about  us;  when  our 
cold  hearts  cease  to  beat,  let  warm  hearts  be  beating  near; 
let  our  last  look  be  upon  the  bounds  which  God  has  set 
to  his  own  bright  skies,  and  not  on  stone  walls  and  bars 
of  iron!  Dear  sisters,  let  us  live  and  die,  if  you  list,  in  this 
green  garden's  compass. 

Dickens  had  very  advanced  opinions  in  regard  to  the 
'importance  of  physical  training,  especially  of  play,  as  an 
agent  not  only  in  physical  culture,  but  in  the  development 
of  the  mind  and  character.  Doctor  Blimber's  school  is 
condemned  because  the  boys  were  not  allowed  to  play,  and 
Doctor  Strong's  school  is  highly  commended  because  the 
boys  "  had  noble  games  out  of  doors  "  there. 

What  splendid  runners  and  jumpers  and  divers  and 
swimmers  those  grand  boys  were  whom  Mr.  Marton  had 
the  good  fortune  to  teach  in  his  second  school  in  The  Old 
Curiosity  Shop! 

Mrs.  Crupp  reconunended  David  Copperfield  to  take 
up  some  game  as  an  antidote  for  his  despondency  during 
his  early  love  experience. 

"  If  you  was  to  take  to  something,  sir,"  said  Mrs. 
Crupp,  "  if  you  was  to  take  to  skittles,  now,  which  is 


MISCELLAXEOUS   EDUCATIONAL   PRINCIPLES.    297 

healthy,  you  might  find  it  divert  your  mind  and  do  you 
good." 

Mrs.  Chick  told  Mr.  Dombey  that  Paul  was  delicate. 
"  Our  darling  is  not  altogether  as  stout  as  we  could  wish. 
The  fact  is  that  his  mind  is  too  much  for  him.  His  soul 
is  a  great  deal  too  large  for  his  frame."  Yet  his  father 
paid  no  attention  to  the  boy's  food,  and  sent  him,  when 
but  a  little  sickly  child,  to  Doctor  Blimber's  to  learn 
everything — not  to  play.  "  They  had  nothing  so  vulgar  as 
play  at  Doctor  Blimber's." 

One  of  the  most  vicious  conventions  is  that  which 
makes  vigorous  play  vulgar  and  unladylike   for  girls. 

He  called  attention  in  American  notes  to  the  advan- 
tages possessed  by  the  students  of  Upper  Canada  College, 
Toronto,  inasmuch  as  "  the  town  is  well  adapted  for 
wholesome  exercise  at  all  seasons."  In  the  same  book  he 
gives  his  opinion  that  American  girls  "  must  go  more 
wisely  clad,  and  take  more  healthful  exercise." 

He  praised  the  free  life  of  the  gipsy  children  in  ISTich- 
olas  Xickleby. 

In  Martin  Chuzzlewit,  when  Tom  Pinch  and  Martin 
had  to  walk  to  Salisbury  instead  of  riding  in  Mr.  Peck- 
sniff's gig,  Dickens  says  it  was  better  for  them  that  they 
were  compelled  to  walk.  What  a  breezy  enthusiasm  he 
throws  into  his  advocacy  of  walking  as  an  exercise : 

Better!  A  rare  strong,  hearty,  healthy  walk — four 
statute  miles  an  hour — preferable  to  that  rumbling,  tum- 
bling, jolting,  shaking,  scraping,  creaking,  villainous  old 
gig?  Why,  the  two  things  will  not  admit  of  comparison. 
It  is  an  insult  to  the  walk  to  set  them  side  by  side.  Where 
is  an  instance  of  a  gig  having  ever  circulated  a  man's 
blood,  unless  when,  putting  him  in  danger  of  his  neck,  it 
awakened  in  his  veins  and  in  his  ears,  and  all  along  his 
spine,  a  tingling  heat  much  more  peculiar  than  agree- 
able? When  did  a  gig  ever  sharpen  anybody's  wits  and 
energies,  unless  it  was  when  the  horse  bolted,  and,  crash- 
ing madh^  down  a  steep  hill  with  a  stone  wall  at  the  bot- 
tom, his  desperate  circumstances  suggested  to  the  only 
gentleman  left  inside  some  novel  and  unheard-of  mode 
of  dropping  out  behind?     Better  than  the  gig! 

Better  than  the  gig!     When  were  travellers  by  wheels 


298  DICKENS  AS  AN  EDUCATOR. 

and  hoofs  seen  with  such  red-hot  cheeks  as  those?  when 
were  they  so  good-humouredly  and  merrily  bloused?  when 
did  their  laughter  ring  upon  the  air,  as  they  turned  them 
round,  what  time  the  stronger  gusts  came  sweeping  up; 
and,  facing  round  again  as  they  passed  by,  dashed  on,  in 
such  a  glow  of  ruddy  health  as  nothing  could  keep  pace 
with,  but  the  high  spirits  it  engendered?  Better  than 
the  gig!  Why  here  is  a  man  in  a  gig  coming  the  same 
way  now.  Look  at  him  as  he  passes  his  whip  into  his  left 
hand,  chafes  his  numbed  right  fingers  on  his  granite  leg, 
and  beats  those  marble  toes  of  his  upon  the  footboard. 
Ha,  ha,  ha!  Who  would  exchange  this  rapid  hurry  of  the 
blood  for  yonder  stagnant  misery,  though  its  pace  were 
twenty  miles  for  one? 

Better  than  the  gig!  No  man  in  a  gig  could  have  such 
interest  in  the  milestones.  No  man  in  a  gig  could  see,  or 
ieel,  or  think,  like  merry  users  of  their  legs. 

Dickens  taught  comparatively  little  about  the  subjects 
of  instruction  or  the  methods  of  teaching  them.  He  dealt 
cramming  its  most  stunning  blow  in  Doctor  Blimber's 
school,  and  he  criticised  sharply  the  methods  of  teaching 
classics  and  literature  in  the  same  school.  He  advocated 
the  objective  method  of  teaching  number  in  Jemmy  Lir- 
riper's  training  at  home  by  Major  Jackman. 

He  took  more  interest  in  reading  and  literature  than 
in  any  other  department  of  school  study,  so  far  as  can  be 
judged  from  his  writings.  He  deplored  the  practice  of 
allowing  children  to  try  to  read  before  they  could  rec- 
ognise the  words  readily,  and  understand  their  meaning 
in  the  training  of  Pip  and  Charley  Hexam.  At  the  great 
party  at  Mr.  Merdle's, 

the  Bishop  consulted  the  great  Physician  on  the  relaxa- 
tion of  the  throat  with  w^hich  young  curates  were  too  fre- 
quently afflicted,  and  on  the  means  of  lessening  the  great 
prevalence  of  that  disorder  in  the  church.  Physician,  as 
a  general  rule,  was  of  opinion  that  the  best  way  to  avoid 
it  was  to  know  how  to  read  before  you  made  a  profession 
of  reading.  Bishop  said,  dubiously,  did  he  really  think 
"SO?     And  Physician  said,  decidedly,  yes,  he  did. 

He  criticised,  too,  the  reading  in  the  school  visited  in 
an  American  city,  because  "  the  girls  blundered  through 


MISCELLANEOUS  EDUCATIONAL  PRINCIPLES.    29^ 

three  or  four  dreary  passages,  obviously  without  compre- 
hending ten  words,"  and  said  "  he  would  have  been  much 
better  pleased  if  they  had  been  asked  to  read  some  simpler 
selections  which  they  could  understand." 

Mr.  Wegg,  when  reading  for  Mr.  Boffin  in  Our 
Mutual  i'riend,  "  read  on  by  rote,  and  attached  as  few 
ideas  as  possible  to  the  text.'' 

He  discusses  the  advantages  of  reading  suitable  books 
in  David  Copperfield,  giving  to  David  his  own  real  ex- 
perience in  early  boyhood.  After  describing  the  cruel 
treatment  of  the  Murdstones,  he  says: 

The  natural  result  of  this  treatment,  continued,  I  sup- 
pose, for  some  six  months,  was  to  make  me  sullen,  dull, 
and  dogged.  I  was  not  made  the  less  so  by  my  sense  of 
being  daily  more  and  more  shut  out  and  alienated  from 
my  mother.  I  believe  I  should  have  been  almost  stupefied 
but  for  one  circumstance. 

It  was  this.  My  father  had  left  a  small  collection  of 
books  in  a  little  room  upstairs,  to  which  I  had  access  (for 
it  joined  my  own)  and  which  nobody  else  in  our  house  ever 
troubled.  From  that  blessed  little  room,  Eoderick  Ran- 
dom, Peregrine  Pickle,  Humphrey  Clinker,  Tom  Jones, 
The  Vicar  of  Wakefield,  Don  Quixote,  Gil  Bias,  and  Robin- 
son Crusoe,  came  out,  a  glorious  host  to  keep  me  com- 
pany. They  kept  alive  my  fancy,  and  my  hope  of  some- 
thing beyond  that  place  and  time — they,  and  the  Arabian 
Nights,   and   the   tales   of  the   Genii. 

His  faith  in  the  influence  of  reading  increased  as  he 
grew  older.  In  Our  Mutual  Friend  he  says :  "  Xo  one 
who  can  read  ever  looks  at  a  book,  even  unopened  on  a 
shelf,  like  one  who  can  not  read." 

Dickens  taught  a  useful  lesson  in  Martin  Chuzzlewit 
regarding  the  way  teachers  used  to  be  treated  by  society. 
Even  yet  there  is  need  of  a  higher  recognition  of  the 
teaching  profession  in  its  true  dignity  by  a  civilization 
that  reverences  wealth  more  than  intellectual  and  spir- 
itual character. 

Tom  Pinch's  sister  was  engaged  in  the  family  of  a 
wealthy  brass  founder.  She  was  treated  contemptuously 
by  him  and  his  wife,  yet  they  complained  to  Tom  that  his 


300  DICKENS  AS  AN   EDUCATOR. 

sister  was  unable  to  command  the  respect  of  her  pupil. 
Tom  was  naturally  indignant,  and  he  spoke  his  mind 
very  clearly  to  the  brass  founder. 

"  Sir!  "  cried  Tom,  after  regarding"  him  in  silence  for 
some  time.  "  If  you  do  not  understand  what  I  mean  I 
will  tell  you.  My  meaning  is  that  no  man  can  expect  his 
children  to  respect  what  he  degrades. 

"  When  you  tell  me,"  resumed  Tom,  who  was  not  the 
less  indignant  for  keeping  himself  quiet,  "  that  my  sister 
has  no  innate  power  of  commanding  the  respect  of  your 
children,  I  must  tell  you  it  is  not  so;  and  that  she  has. 
She  is  as  well  bred,  as  well  taught,  as  well  qualified  by 
Nature  to  command  respect  as  any  hirer  of  a  governess 
you  know.  But  when  you  place  her  at  a  disadvantage  in 
reference  to  every  servant  in  your  house,  how  can  you  sup- 
pose, if  you  have  the  gift  of  common  sense,  that  she  is  not 
in  a  tenfold  worse  position  in  reference  to  your  daugh- 
ters? " 

"Pretty  well!  Upon  my  word,"  exclaimed  the  gentle- 
man, "that  is  pretty  well!  " 

"  It  is  very  ill,  sir,"  said  Tom.  "  It  is  very  bad  and 
mean  and  wrong  and  cruel.  Respect!  I  believe  young 
people  are  quick  enough  to  observe  and  imitate;  and  why 
or  how  should  they  respect  whom  no  one  else  respects, 
and  everybody  slights?  And  very  partial  they  must  grow 
— oh,  very  partial! — to  their  studies,  when  they  see  to 
what  a  pass  proficiency  in  those  same  tasks  has  brought 
their  governess!  Respect!  Put  anything  the  most  deserv- 
ing of  respect  before  your  daughters  in  the  light  in  which 
you  place  her,  and  you  will  bring  it  down  as  low,  no  matter 
what  it  is!  " 

"  You  speak  with  extreme  impertinence,  young  man," 
observed  the  gentleman. 

"  I  speak  without  passion,  but  with  extreme  indigna- 
tion and  contempt  for  such  a  course  of  treatment,  and 
for  all  who  practise  it,"  said  Tom.  "  Why,  how  can  you, 
as  an  honest  gentleman,  profess  displeasure  or  surprise 
at  your  daughter  telling  my  sister  she-  is  something  beg- 
garly and  humble  when  you  are  forever  telling  her  the 
same  thing  yourself  in  fifty  plain,  outspeaking  ways, 
though  not  in  words;  and  when  your  very  porter  and 
footman  make  the  same  delicate  announcement  to  all 
•comers?  " 


MISCELLANEOUS  EDUCATIONAL   PRINCIPLES.    301 

Dickens  described  a  great  variety  of  weak,  and  mean, 
and  selfish,  and  degraded  people  in  order  to  expose  weak- 
ness, and  meanness,  and  selfishness,  and  baseness,  so  that 
humanity  might  learn  to  overcome  them,  but  he  reserved 
his  supreme  contempt  for  those  who  oppose  the  general 
education  of  "  the  masses,"  because  it  fills  their  mind 
with  ideas  above  their  station,  or  disqualifies  them  for  the 
work  they  were  intended  to  do.  This  being  interpreted, 
means  in  plain  language  that  certain  human  beings  who, 
because  they  possess  wealth,  or  belong  to  what  they  arro- 
gantly call  the  "  upper  classes,"  claim  the  right  to  domi- 
nate those  who  have  not  a  sufficient  amount  of  money  to 
be  independent  of  them;  to  fix  what  they  selfishly  call  "  the 
sphere  of  the  lower  classes  " ;  and  to  prescribe  the  limits 
beyond  which  the  children  of  the  poor  must  not  be  edu- 
cated, lest  they  be  lifted  beyond  tame  subserviency  to 
their  natural  lords  and  masters,  and  fail  to  abase  them- 
selves dutifully  or  to  be  sufficiently  grateful  to  those 
above  them  for  the  pittance  they  grudgingly  give  them 
for  labouring  in  the  menial  occupations  assigned  them. 

Dickens  despised  all  Barnacles,  and  Dedlocks,  and 
Podsnaps,  and  Dombeys,  and  Merdles;  he  ridiculed  all 
who  violate  the  sacred  bond  of  human  brotherhood ;  but  the 
vials  of  his  bitterest  wrath  were  poured  upon  those  who 
because  a  child  was  born  in  the  home  of  poor  parents 
would  therefore  restrict  its  education  and  dwarf  its  soul. 

Mr.  Dombey,  after  the  christening  of  Paul,  called  Mrs. 
Toodle  before  his  guests,  and  in  a  very  condescending  but 
rigidly  majestic  manner  told  her  he  had  graciously  de- 
cided to  send  her  son  to  the  school  of  the  Charitable 
Grinders.  He  prefaced  his  announcement  by  a  brief 
statement  of  his  views  regarding  education : 

"I  am  far  from  being  friendly,"  pursued  Mr, Dombey,  "to 
what  is  called  by  persons  of  levelling  sentiments,  general 
education.  But  it  is  necessary  that  the  inferior  classes  should 
continue  to  be  taught  to  know  their  position,  and  to  con- 
duct themselves  properly.     So  far  I  approve  of  schools." 

In  Mr.  Dombey's  eyes,  as  in  some  others  that  occasion- 
ally see  the  light,  they  only  achieved  that  mighty  piece  of 
knowledge,  the  understanding  of  their  own  position,  who 


302  DICKE2;S  AS  AN  EDUCATOR. 

showed  a  fitting*  reverence  for  his.  It  was  not  so  much 
their  merit  that  they  knew  themselves,  as  that  they  knew 
him,  and  bowed  low  before  him. 

There  are  thousands  of  Dombeys  still.  Two  Canadian 
judges  recently  said  in  speaking  of  education  precisely 
what  Mr.  Dombey  and  his  class  said  in  the  time  of 
Dickens.  One  objected  to  educating  the  common  people 
because  it  unfitted  them  for  positions  as  house  servants, 
and  made  them  so  outrageously  independent  that  they 
would  not  bow  (bend  their  bodies  properly,  bow  their 
heads,  and  look  reverently  at  the  floor)  when  in  the  pres- 
ence of  their  mistresses.  The  other  said  that  the  very 
derivation  of  the  word  "  education  "  meant  to  lead  out, 
and  it  was  therefore  clear  that  "  education  should  be 
used  to  develop  a  few,  '  lead  them  out,'  beyond  the  masses 
in  order  that  they  might  be  qualified  for  leadership." 
The  necessary  development  to  be  imposed  upon  all  but  the 
favoured  few  in  his  system  of  government  is  willingness 
to  follow  leaders,  and  ignorance  is  the  only  condition 
that  can  make  this  possible.  The  glory  of  education  is 
the  awakening  of  the  consciousness  of  freedom  in  the 
soul  of  the  race  and  the  revelation  of  the  perfect  law  of 
liberty — individual  right,  social  duty.  The  shackles, 
physical,  intellectual,  and  spiritual,  have  fallen  from  hu- 
manity, as  education  has  done  its  true  work  of  eman- 
cipating the  individual  soul  and  revealing  its  own  value 
and  its  responsibility  for  its  brother  souls. 

The  most  brutal  of  all  the  characters  described  by 
Dickens  is  Bill  Sikes.  The  most  degraded  and  despicable 
of  his  characters  is  Dennis  the  hangman  in  Barnaby 
Riidge.  Dickens  makes  Bill  Sikes  and  Dennis  use  the 
very  same  arguments,  from  their  standpoint,  that  the  so- 
called  upper  classes  have  used  and  still  do  use  against 
the  education  of  the  masses. 

Bill  Sikes,  referring  to  the  need  of  small  boys  in  the 
trade  of  burglary,  said: 

"  I  want  a  boy,  and  he  mustn't  be  a  big  'un.  Lord!  "  said 
Mr.  Sikes,  reflectively,  "  if  I'd  only  got  that  young  boy  of 
Ned,  the  chimbley  sweeper's!  He  kept  him  small  on  pur- 
pose,  and   let  him  out  by  the  job.      But  the   father  gets 


MISCELLANEOUS  EDUCATIONAL   PRINCIPLES.    303 

lag-g-ed;  and  then  the  Juvenile  Delinquent  Society  comes 
and  takes  the  boy  away  from  a  trade  where  he  was  arning 
money,  teaches  him  to  read  and  write,  and  in  time  makes 
a  'prentice  of  him.  And  so  they  go  on,"  said  Mr.  Sikes, 
his  wrath  rising  with  the  recollection  of  his  wrongs,  "  so 
they  go  on;  and,  if  they'd  got  money  enough  (which  it's  a 
Providence  they  haven't),  we  shouldn't  have  half  a  dozen 
boys  left  in  the  whole  trade  in  a  year  or  two." 

And  Fagin  agreed  with  Bill  Sikes. 

When  Hugh  was  formally  adm.itted  as  a  member  of 
Lord  Gordon's  mob  Dennis  the  hangman  was  much  de- 
lighted at  the  addition  of  such  a  strong  young  man  to 
the  ranks,  and  Dickens  adds: 

If  anything  could  have  exceeded  Mr.  Dennis's  joy  on 
the  happy  conclusion  of  this  ceremony  it  would  have  been 
the  rapture  with  which  he  received  the  announcement  that 
the  new  member  could  neither  read  nor  write:  those  two 
arts  being  (as  Mr.  Dennis  swore)  the  greatest  possible 
curse  a  civilized  community  could  know,  and  militating 
more  against  the  professional  emoluments  and  usefulness 
of  the  great  constitutional  office  he  had  the  honour  to  hold 
than  any  adverse  circumstances  that  could  present  them- 
selves to  his  imagination. 

Bill  Sikes  objected  to  education  because  it  spoiled  the 
boys  for  the  trade  for  which  he  required  them;  Dennis 
the  hangman  objected  to  education  because  "  it  reduced 
the  professional  emoluments  of  his  great  constitutional 
office,"  or,  in  other  words,  reduced  the  number  who  had 
to  be  hanged;  and  their  reasons  are  just  as  respectable  as 
the  reason  given  by  any  man  in  any  position  who  ob- 
jects to  free  education  because  it  unfits  boys  for  cer- 
tain trades,  or  girls  for  "  service,"  or  because  "  it  fills 
their  minds  with  ideas  above  their  station,"  or  because 
they  have  to  pay  their  just  share  of  its  cost,  or  for  any 
other  narrow  and  selfish  reason.  Selfishness  is  selfishness, 
and  it  is  as  utterly  loathsome  in  a  bishop  as  in  Bill 
Sikes,  in  a  judge  as  in  Dennis  the  hangman. 

Dickens  never  did  any  more  artistic  work  than  when 
he  painted  the  aristocratic  objectors  to  popular  education 
in  their  natural  hideousness  with  Bill  Sikes  and  Dennis 
the  hangman  for  a  harmonious  background. 


CHAPTER  XVII. 

THE  TRAINING  OF  POOR,  NEGLECTED,  AND  DEFECTIVE  CHILDREN. 

It  is  a  singular  fact  that  humanity  in  its  highest  de- 
velopment so  long  neglected  the  poor,  and  the  weak,  and 
the  defective.  They  were  practically  left  out  of  consid- 
eration by  educators  and  philanthropists.  The  fact  that 
they  more  than  any  others  needed  education  and  care 
was  not  seen  clearly  enough  to  lead  to  definite  plans  for 
the  amelioration  of  their  misfortunes  until  the  nineteenth 
century.  Dickens  must  always  have  the  honour  of  being 
the  great  English  apostle  of  the  poor — especially  of  neg- 
lected childhood. 

He  wrote  in  the  Uncommercial  Traveller: 

I  can  find — must  find,  whether  I  will  or  no — in  the 
open  streets,  shameful  instances  of  neglect  of  children, 
intolerable  toleration  of  the  engenderment  of  paupers, 
idlers,  thieves,  races  of  wretched  and  destructive  cripples 
both  in  body  and  mind;  a  misery  to  themselves,  a  misery 
to  the  community,  a  disgrace  to  civilization,  and  an  out- 
rage on  Christianity,  I  know  it  to  be  a  fact  as  easy  of 
demonstration  as  any  sum  in  any  of  the  elementary  rules 
of  arithmetic,  that  if  the  State  would  begin  its  work  and 
duty  at  the  beginning,  and  would  with  the  strong  hand 
take  those  children  out  of  the  streets  while  they  are  yet 
children,  and  wisely  train  them,  it  would  make  them  a 
part  of  England's  glory,  not  its  shame — of  England's 
strength,  not  its  weakness — would  raise  good  soldiers  and 
sailors,  and  good  citizens,  and  many  great  men  out  of  the 
seeds  of  its  criminal  population;  it  would  clear  London 
streets  of  the  most  terrible  objects  they  smite  the  sight 
with — myriads  of  little  children  who  awfully  reverse  our 
Saviour's  words,  and  are  not  of  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven, 
but  of  the  Kingdom  of  Hell. 

304 


THE   TRAINING   OF   NEGLECTED   CHILDREN.  305 

He  sympathized  with  childhood  on  account  of  every 
form  of  coercion  and  abuse  practised  upon  it  by  tyran- 
nical, selfish,  or  ignorant  adulthood,  under  the  most  fa- 
vourable conditions ;  but  his  great  heart  was  especially  ten- 
der toward  the  little  ones  who,  in  addition  to  coercion  and 
abuse,  and  bad  training  by  the  selfish,  the  ignorant,  and 
the  careless,  were  compelled  to  endure  the  terrible  suffer- 
ings and  deprivations  of  poverty.  He  was  conscious  not 
only  of  the  material  and  physical  evils  to  which  the 
children  of  the  very  poor  were  exposed,  but  of  the  men- 
tal and  spiritual  barrenness  of  their  lives,  and  one  of  his 
most  manifest  educational  purposes  was  to  improve 
social  conditions,  to  arouse  the  spirit  of  truly  sympathetic 
brotherhood  (not  merely  considerate  altruism,  but  genu- 
ine brotherhood)  to  place  the  poorest  children  in  condi- 
tions that  would  develop  by  experience  the  apperceptive 
centres  of  intellectual  and  spiritual  growth,  and  to  direct 
special  attention  to  the  urgent  need  of  education  for  the 
blind,  the  deaf,  and  the  mentally  defective. 

Xo  other  American  touched  his  heart  and  won  his 
reverence  quite  so  thoroughly  as  Dr.  Howe,  of  Boston, 
who  will  undoubtedly  be  recognised  as  one  of  the  greatest 
men  yet  produced  by  American  civilization  when  men  are 
tested  by  their  purposes,  and  by  their  unselfish  work  for 
humanity  in  hitherto  untrodden  paths.  After  describing 
Dr.  Howe's  work  for  the  blind,  he  reverently  says : 
"  There  are  not  many  persons,  I  hope  and  believe,  who, 
after  reading  these  passages,  can  ever  hear  that  name  with 
indifference."  / 

Dickens  charged  on  humanity,  on  society,  the  crime/ 
of  making  criminals.    He  said  with  great  force  and  trutl^ 
in  the  preface  to  Martin  Chuzzlewit : 

Nothing  is  more  common  in  real  life  than  a  want  of 
profitable  reflection  on  the  causes  of  many  vices  and  crimes 
that  awaken  general  horror.  What  is  substantially  true 
of  families  in  this  respect,  is  true  of  a  whole  common- 
■wealth.  As  we  sow,  we  reap.  Let  the  reader  go  into  the 
children's  side  of  any  prison  in  England,  or,  I  grieve  to 
add,  of  many  workhouses,  and  judge  whether  those  are 
monsters  who  disgrace  our  streets,  people  our  hulks  and 


306  DICKENS  AS  AN   EDUCATOR. 

penitentiaries,  and  overcrowd  our  penal  colonies,  or  are 
creatures  whom  we  have  deliberately  suffered  to  be  bred 
for  misery  and  ruin. 

This  thought  was  the  motive  that  led  him  through- 
out his  whole  life  to  try  to  arouse  sympathetic  interest  of 
the  most  active  kind  in  the  conditions  and  circumstances 
of  the  poor. 

One  of  his  most  striking  appeals  to  thoughtful  people 
is  made  in  Martin  Chuzzlewit.  These  profound  words 
will  always  be  worthy  of  careful  study  by  teachers  and 
reformers : 

Oh,  moralists,  who  treat  of  happiness  and  self-respect, 
innate  in  every  sphere  of  life,  and  shedding  light  on  every 
grain  of  dust  in  God's  highway,  so  smooth  below  your 
carriage  wheels,  so  rough  beneath  the  tread  of  naked  feet, 
bethink  yourselves  in  looking  on  the  swift  descent  of  men 
who  Jiave  lived  in  their  own  esteem,  that  there  are  scores 
of  thousands  breathing  now,  and  breathing  thick  with  pain- 
ful toil,  who  in  that  high  respect  have  never  lived  at  all, 
nor  had  a  chance  of  life!  Go  ye,  who  rest  so  placidly  upon 
the  sacred  bard  who  had  been  young,  and  when  he  strung 
his  harp  was  old,  and  had  never  seen  the  righteous  for- 
saken, or  his  seed  begging  their  bread;  go,  teachers  of 
content  and  honest  pride,  into  the  mine,  the  mill,  the 
forge,  the  squalid  depths  of  deepest  ignorance,  and  utter- 
most abyss  of  man's  neglect,  and  say  can  any  hopeful  plant 
spring  up  in  air  so  foul  that  it  extinguishes  the  soul's 
bright  torch  as  fast  as  it  is  kindled!  And,  oh!  ye  Phari- 
sees of  the  nineteen  hundredth  year  of  Christian  knowl- 
edge, who  soundingly  appeal  to  human  nature,  see  that  it 
be  human  first.  Take  heed  it  has  not  been  transformed, 
during  your  slumber  and  the  sleep  of  generations,  into  the 
nature  of  the  beasts. 

Dickens  saw  clearly  the  depravity  of  human  nature, 
but  he  looked  beyond  the  depravity  to  its  cause,  and  he 
found  a  natural  cause  for  the  degradation,  but  not  the 
cause  that  had  been  commonly  assigned.  He  taught  that 
the  highest  and  holiest  elements  in  human  nature  were 
the  causes  of  its  swiftest  deterioration  when  misused, 
perverted,  or  neglected. 

Alice  Marwood,  in  Dombey  and  Son,  was  introduced  to 


THE   TEAIXING   OF   NEGLECTED  CHILDREN.  307 

teach  parents  and  society  in  general  the  duties  they  owe 
to  childhood,  and  to  show  how  lives  are  wrecked  by  neg- 
lect and  by  a  false  use  of  power.  When  she  returned, 
an  outcast,  to  her  mother,  and  her  mother  upbraided  her, 
the  young  woman  said: 

"  I  tell  Yoxi,  motlier,  for  the  second  time,  there  have 
been  years  for  me  as  well  as  you.  Come  back  harder? 
Of  course  I  have  come  back  harder.  What  else  did  you  ex- 
pect? " 

"Harder  to  me!  To  her  own  dear  mother!  "  cried  the 
old  woman. 

"  I  don't  know  who  began  to  harden  me,  if  my  ov.n 
dear  mother  didn't,"  she  returned,  sitting  with  her  folded 
arms,  and  knitted  brows,  and  compressed  lips,  as  if  she 
were  bent  on  excluding,  by  force,  every  softer  feeling  from 
her  breast.  "  Listen,  mother,  to  a  word  or  two.  If  we 
understand  each  other  now,  we  shall  not  fall  out  any 
more,  perhaps.  I  went  away  a  girl,  and  have  come  back 
a  woman.  I  went  away  undutiful  enough,  and  have  come 
back  no  better,  you  may  swear.  But  have  you  been  very 
dutiful  to  me?"' 

"I!  "  cried  the  old  woman.  "To  my  own  gal!  A 
mother  dutiful  to  her  own  child!  " 

"It  sounds  unnatural,  don't  it?"  returned  the  daugh- 
ter, looking  coldly  on  her  with  her  stern,  regardless,  hardy, 
beautiful  face;  "  but  I  have  thought  of  it  sometimes,  in 
the  course  of  my  lone  years,  till  I  have  got  used  to  it.  I 
have  heard  some  talk  about  duty  first  and  last;  but  it 
has  always  been  of  my  duty  to  other  people.  I  have  won- 
dered now  and  then — to  pass  away  the  time — whether  no 
one  ever  owed  any  duty  to  me." 

Her  mother  sat  mowing,  and  mumbling,  and  shaking 
her  head,  but  whether  angrily,  or  remorsefully,  or  in  de- 
nial, or  only  in  her  physical   infirmity,   did   not   appear. 

"  There  was  a  child  called  Alice  Marwood,"  said  the 
daughter  with  a  laugh,  and  looking  down  at  herself  in 
terrible  derision  of  herself,  "  born  among  poverty  and  neg- 
lect, and  nurtured  in  it.  Nobody  taught  her.  nobody 
stepped  forward  to  help  her,  nobody  cared  for  her." 

"  Nobody!  "  echoed  the  mother,  pointing  to  herself 
and  striking  her  breast. 

"  The  only  care  she  knew,"  returned  the  daughter, 
"  was  to  be  beaten,  and  stinted,  and  abused  sometimes;  and 


308  DICKENS  AS  AN  EDUCATOR. 

she  might  have  done  better  without  that.  She  lived  in 
homes  like  this,  and  in  the  streets,  w^ith  a  crowd  of  little 
wretches  like  herself;  and  yet  she  brought  good  looks  out 
of  this  childhood.  So  much  the  worse  for  her.  She  had  bet- 
ter have  been  hunted  and  worried  to  death  for  ugliness." 

"  Go  on!  go  on!  "  exclaimed  the  mother. 

"  She'll  soon  have  ended,"  said  the  daughter.  "  There 
was  a  criminal  called  Alice  Marwood — a  girl  still,  but  de- 
serted and  an  outcast.  And  she  was  tried,  and  she  was 
sentenced.  And  Lord,  how  the  gentlemen  in  the  court 
talked  about  it!  and  how  grave  the  judge  was  on  her 
duty,  and  on  her  having  perverted  the  gifts  of  Nature — 
as  if  he  didn't  know  better  than  anybody  there  that  they 
had  been  made  curses  to  her! — and  how  he  preached  about 
the  strong  arm  of  the  Law — so  very  strong  to  save  her, 
when  she  was  an  innocent  and  helpless  little  wretch!  and 
how  solemn  and  religious  it  all  was!  I  have  thought  of 
that  many  times  since,  to  be  sure!  " 

She  folded  her  arms  tightly  on  her  breast,  and  laughed 
in  a  tone  that  made  the  howl  of  the  old  woman  musical. 

"  So  Alice  Marwood  vs^as  transported,  mother,"  she  pur- 
sued, "  and  was  sent  to  learn  her  duty  where  there  was 
twenty  times  less  duty,  and  more  wickedness,  and  wrong, 
and  infamy,  than  here.  And  Alice  Marwood  is  come  back 
a  woman.  Such  a  woman  as  she  ought  to  be,  after  all  this. 
In  good  time,  there  will  be  more  solemnity,  and  more 
fine  talk,  and  more  strong  arm,  most  likely,  and  there  will 
be  an  end  of  her;  but  the  gentlemen  needn't  be  afraid 
of  being  thrown  out  of  work.  There's  crowds  of  little 
wretches,  boy  and  girl,  growing  up  in  any  of  the  streets 
they  live  in,  that'll  keep  them  to  it  till  they've  made  their 
fortunes." 

Bleak  House  is  one  of  the  greatest  of  the  educational 
works  of  Dickens.  One  of  its  chief  aims  was  to  arouse 
a  sympathetic  interest  in  the  lives  of  poor  children.  The 
Neckett  children,  Charlotte,  and  Tom,  and  Emma,  re- 
vealed a  new  world  to  many  thousands  of  good  people. 

"Charley,  Charley!"  said  my  guardian.  "How  old 
are  you?  " 

"  Over  thirteen,  sir,"  replied  the  child. 

"Oh!  what  a  great  age,"  said  my  guardian.  "What 
a  great  age,  Charley!  " 


THE   TRAINING   OF  NEGLECTED   CHILDREN.  309 

"  And  do  you  live  alone  here  with  these  babies, 
Charley?  "  said  my  guardian. 

"  Yes,  sir,"  returned  the  child,  looking  up  into  his  face 
with  perfect  confidence,  "  since  father  died." 

"And  how  do  you  live,  Charley?  Ohl  Charley,"  said 
my  guardian,  turning  his  face  away  for  a  moment,  "  how 
do  you  live?  " 

"  Since  my  father  died,  sir,  I've  gone  out  to  work.  I'm 
out  washing  to-day." 

"  God  help  3'ou,  Charley!  "  said  my  guardian.  "  You're 
not  tall  enough  to  reach  the  tub!  " 

"  In  pattens  I  am,  sir,"  she  said,  quickly.  "  I've  got  a 
high  pair  as  belonged  to  mother." 

"And  when  did  mother  die?     Poor  mother  I  " 

"  Mother  died  just  after  Emma  was  born,"  said  the 
child,  glancing  at  the  face  upon  her  bosom.  "  Then  father 
said  I  was  to  be  as  good  a  mother  to  her  as  I  could.  And 
so  I  tried.  And  so  I  worked  at  home,  and  did  cleaning 
and  nursing  and  washing,  for  a  long  time  before  I  began 
to  go  out.  And  that's  how  I  know  how;  don't  you  see, 
sir?  " 

"And  do  you  often  go  out?" 

"  As  often  as  I  can."  said  Charley,  opening  her  eyes, 
and  smiling,  "  because  of  earning  sixpences  and  shil- 
lings! " 

"  And  do  you  always  lock  the  babies  up  when  you  go 
out?" 

"  To  keep  'em  safe,  sir,  don't  you  see?  "  said  Charley. 
"  Mrs.  Blinder  comes  up  now  and  then,  and  Mr.  Gridley 
comes  up  sometimes,  and  perhaps  I  can  run  in  sometimes, 
and  they  can  play,  you  know,  and  Tom  ain't  afraid  of  being 
locked  up,  are  you,  Tom?  " 

"Xo-o!  "  said  Tom  stoutly. 

"  When  it  comes  on  dark  the  lamps  are  lighted  down 
in  the  court,  and  they  show  up  here  quite  bright — almost 
quite  bright.     Don't  they,  Tom?" 

"Yes,  Charley,"  said  Tom;   "almost  quite  bright." 

The  hearts  must  be  hard  that  are  not  moved  to  a 
deeper  and  more  practical  interest  in  the  children  of  the 
poor  by  this  pathetic  story,  and  others  of  a  kindred  char- 
acter which  Dickens  told  over  and  over  again  for  the 
Christian  world  to  study.  And  the  study  led  to  feeling 
and  thought  and  co-operative  action. 
21 


310  DICKERS  AS  AN  EDUCATOR. 

The  fruits  of  these  wonderful  stories  are  the  splendid 
homes,  and  organizations  for  children,  and  the  laws  to 
protect  them  from  cruelty  by  parents  or  teachers,  or  em- 
ployers, and  the  free  public  schools  to  educate  them,  and 
the  joy,  and  happiness,  and  freedom,  that  are  taking  the 
place  of  the  sorrow,  and  tears,  and  coercion  of  the  time 
when  Dickens  began  his  noble  work. 

The  tragic  story  of  poor  Jo  illustrated  the  poverty, 
the  ignorance,  the  destitution,  the  hopelessness,  the  bar- 
renness, and  the  dreadful  environment  of  a  London  street 
boy.  The  world  has  done  much  better  since,  as  Dickens 
prophesied  it  would  do,  and  the  good  work  is  going  on. 
Hundreds  of  thousands  of  the  poor  Joes  of  London  are 
now  in  the  public  schools  of  London  alone  of  whom  the 
Christian  philanthropy  of  the  world  thought  little  till 
Dickens  told  his  stories. 

In  Nobody's  Story  Dickens  returns  to  his  special  pur- 
pose of  changing  the  attitude  of  civilization  toward  the 
education  of  the  poor.  The  Bigwigs  represent  society, 
and  "  the  man  "  means  the  poor  man. 

But  the  Bigwig  family  broke  out  into  violent  family 
quarrels  concerning  what  it  was  lawful  to  teach  to  this 
man's  children.  Some  of  the  family  insisted  on  such  a 
thing  being  primary  and  indispensable  above  all  other 
things;  and  others  of  the  family  insisted  on  such  another 
thing  being  primary  and  indispensable  above  all  other 
things;  and  the  Bigwig  family,  rent  into  factions,  wrote 
pamphlets,  held  convocations,  delivered  charges,  orations, 
and  all  varieties  of  discourses;  impounded  one  another  in 
courts  Lay  and  courts  Ecclesiastical;  threw  dirt,  exchanged 
pummellings,  and  fell  together  by  the  ears  in  unintelligible 
animosity.  Meanwhile,  this  man,  in  his  short  evening 
snatches  at  his  fireside,  sa%v  the  demon  Ignorance  arise 
there,  and  take  his  children  to  itself.  He  saw  his  daughter 
perverted  into  a  heavy  slatternly  drudge;  he  saw  his  son 
go  moping  down  the  ways  of  low  sensuality,  to  brutality 
and  crime;  he  saw  the  dawning  light  of  intelligence  in  the 
eyes  of  his  babies  so  changing  into  cunning  and  suspicion, 
that  he  could  have  rather  wished  them  idiots. 

Dickens  objected  to  a  certain  kind  of  sentimentality 
exhibited  in  his  day  toward  criminals,  and  draws  a  very 


THE  TRAINING   OF   NEGLECTED   CHILDREN.  311 

suggestive  picture  full  of  elements  for  psychological 
study  in  David  Copperfield,  in  which  he  makes  the  brutal 
schoolmaster  Creakle  a  very  considerate  Middlesex  magis- 
trate, with  an  unfailing  system  for  a  quick  and  effective 
method  of  converting  the  wickedest  scoundrels  into  the 
most  submissive,  Scripture-quoting  saints  by  solitary  con- 
finement. Dickens  did  not  approve  of  the  system,  and  he 
did  not  approve  either  of  the  plan  of  the  spending  of  so 
much  money  by  the  state  in  erecting  splendid  buildings 
for  criminals,  while  the  honest  poor  were  in  hovels,  and 
especially  while  the  state  allowed  the  boys  and  girls^ 
through  neglect,  to  be  transformed  into  criminals  by  thou- 
sands every  year.  Dickens  would  have  made  criminals 
earn  their  own  living,  and  he  urged  the  establishment  of 
industrial  schools  for  the  boys  and  girls  of  the  streets, 
so  that  they  might  become  respectable,  intelligent,  self-re- 
liant, law-abiding  citizens  instead  of  criminals. 
David  said: 

Traddles  and  I  repaired  to  the  prison  where  Mr.. 
Creakle  was  powerful.  It  was  an  immense  and  solid  build- 
ing, erected  at  a  vast  expense.  I  could  not  help  thinking, 
as  we  approached  the  gate,  what  an  uproar  would  have 
been  made  in  the  country  if  any  deluded  man  had  pro- 
posed to  spend  one  half  the  money  it  had  cost,  on  the  erec- 
tion of  an  industrial  school  for  the  young,  or  a  house  of 
refuge  for  the  deserving  old. 

As  usual  with  great  reformers,  the  philanthropists  of 
his  own  day  refused  to  accept  the  theories  of  Dickens, 
but  succeeding  generations  adopted  them.  The  reforms 
for  which  he  pleaded  began  to  be  practised  so  soon  be- 
cause he  winged  his  thought  with  living  appeals  to  the 
deepest,  truest  feelings  of  the  human  heart. 

Dickens  said  truly  of  Barnaby  Rudge: 

"  The  absence  of  the  soul  is  far  more  terrible  in  a  liv- 
ing man  than  in  a  dead  one;  and  in  this  unfortunate  be- 
ing its  noblest  powers  were  wanting." 

He  pleaded  again  for  those  who  are  weak-minded 
in  Mr.  Dick's  case  in  David  Copperfield.  Mr.  Dick  was 
evidently  introduced  into  the  story  to  show  the  effect 
of  kind  treatment  on  those  who  are  defective  in  intel- 


312  DICKENS  AS  AN   EDUCATOR. 

lect.  The  insane  were  flogged  and  put  in  strait- jackets 
in  the  time  of  Dickens.  His  teaching  is  now  the  practice 
of  the  civilized  world.  The  insane  are  kindly  treated, 
and  weak-minded  children  are  taught  in  good  schools 
by  the  best  teachers  that  can  be  obtained  for  them. 

Betsy  Trotwood,  David's  aunt,  was  an  embodiment  of 
a  good  heart  united  with  an  eminently  practical  head. 
She  did  not  talk  about  religion,  as  did  the  Murdstones, 
but  she  showed  her  religious  life  in  good,  reasonable,  self- 
sacrificing,  helpful  living.  David  asked  her  for  an  ex- 
planation of  Mr.  Dick's  case. 

"  He  has  been  called  mad,"  said  my  aunt.  "  I  have  a 
selfish  pleasure  in  saying  he  has  been  called  mad,  or  I 
should  not  have  had  the  benefit  of  his  society  and  advice 
for  these  last  ten  years  and  upward — in  fact,  ever  since 
your  sister,  Betsy  Trotwood,  disappointed  me." 

"  So  long  as  that?  "  I  said. 

"  And  nice  people  they  were,  who  had  the  audacity  to 
call  him  mad,"  pursued  my  aunt.  "  Mr.  Dick  is  a  sort  of 
distant  connection  of  mine — it  doesn't  matter  how;  I 
needn't  enter  into  that.  If  it  hadn't  been  for  me,  his  own 
brother  would  have  shut  him  up  for  life.     That's  all," 

I  am  afraid  it  was  hypocritical  in  me,  but  seeing  that 
my  aunt  felt  strongly  on  the  subject,  I  tried  to  look  as 
if  I  felt  strongly  too. 

"A  proud  fool!  "  said  my  aunt.  "Because  his  brother 
was  a  little  eccentric — though  he  is  not  half  so  eccentric 
as  a  good  many  people — he  didn't  like  to  have  him  visible 
about  the  house,  and  sent  him  away  to  some  private  asy- 
lum place;  though  he  had  been  left  to  his  particular  care 
by  their  deceased  father,  who  thought  him  almost  a 
natural.  And  a  wise  man  he  must  have  been  to  think  so! 
Mad  himself,  no  doubt." 

Again,  as  my  aunt  looked  quite  convinced,  I  endeavoured 
to  look  quite  convinced  also. 

"  So  I  stepped  in,"  said  my  aunt,  "  and  made  him  an 
offer.  I  said,  '  Your  brother's  sane— a  great  deal  more 
sane  than  you  are,  or  ever  will  be,  it  is  to  be  hoped.  Let 
him  have  his  little  income,  and  come  and  live  with  me.  / 
am  not  afraid  of  him;  /  am  not  proud;  /  am  ready  to  take 
care  of  him,  and  shall  not  ill  treat  him  as  some  people  (be- 
sides the  asylum  folks)  have  done.'  After  a  good  deal  of 
squabbling,"  said  my  aunt,  "  I  got  him;  and  he  has  been 


THE   TRAINING   OF   NEGLECTED   CHILDREN.  313 

here  ever  since.  He  is  the  most  friendlj'  and  amenable 
creature  in  existence;  and  as  for  advice! — but  nobody 
knows  what  that  man's  mind  is,  except  myself." 

Dickens  was  greatly  delighted  with  the  asylums  of  the 
United  States,  and  he  strongly  advocated  the  adoption  in 
England  of  American  methods  of  treating  the  insane. 
He  says,  in  American  Notes: 

At  South  Boston,  as  it  is  called,  in  a  situation  excel- 
lently adapted  for  the  purpose,  several  charitable  institu- 
tions are  clustered  together.  One  of  these  is  the  State 
Hospital  for  the  Insane;  admirably  conducted  on  those  en- 
lightened principles  of  conciliation  and  kindness,  which 
twenty  years  ago  would  have  been  worse  than  heretical, 
and  which  have  been  acted  upon  with  so  much  success  in 
our  own  pauper  asylum  at  Hanwell.  "  Evince  a  desire  to 
show  some  confidence,  and  repose  some  trust,  even  in  mad 
people,"  said  the  resident  physician,  as  we  walked  along 
the  galleries,  his  patients  flocking  round  us  unrestrained. 
Of  those  who  deny  or  doubt  the  wisdom  of  this  maxim  after 
witnessing  its  effects,  if  there  be  such  jjeople  still  alive,  I 
can  only  say  that  I  hope  I  may  never  be  summoned  as  a 
juryman  on  a  commission  of  lunacy  whereof  they  are  the 
subjects;  for  I  should  certainly  find  them  out  of  their 
senses,  on  such  evidence  alone. 

Each  ward  in  this  institution  is  shaped  like  a  long  gal- 
lery or  hall,  with  the  dormitories  of  the  patients  opening 
from  it  on  either  hand.  Here  they  work,  read,  play  at 
skittles,  and  other  games;  and,  when  the  weather  does 
not  admit  of  their  taking  exercise  out  of  doors,  pass 
the  day  together.  In  one  of  these  rooms,  seated,  calmly, 
and  quite  as  a  matter  of  course,  among  a  throng  of  mad 
women,  black  and  white,  were  the  physician's  wife  and 
another  lady,  with  a  couple  of  children.  These  ladies 
were  graceful  and  handsome;  and  it  was  not  difficult  to 
perceive  at  a  glance  that  even  their  presence  there  had  a 
highly  beneficial  influence  on  the  patients  who  were 
grouped  about  them. 

Every  patient  in  this  asylum  sits  do^vn  to  dinner  every 
day  with  a  knife  and  fork;  and  in  the  midst  of  them  sits 
the  gentleman  whose  manner  of  dealing  with  his  charges 
I  have  just  described.  At  every  meal,  moral  influence  alone 
restrains  the  more  violent  among  them  from  cutting  the 
throats  of  the  rest;   but  the  effect  of  that  influence  is  re- 


314  DICKENS  AS  AN  EDUCATOR. 

duced  to  an  absolute  certainty,  and  is  found,  even  as  a 
means  of  restraint,  to  say  nothing  of  it  as  a  means  of 
cure,  a  hundred  times  more  efficacious  than  all  the  strait- 
waistcoats,  fetters,  and  handcuffs,  that  ignorance,  preju- 
dice, and  cruelty  have  manufactured  since  the  creation  of 
the  world. 

How  much  those  benighted  teachers  who  so  tragically 
ask  "  What  can  you  do  with  bad  boys,  if  you  do  not  use 
corporal  punishment  ? "  might  learn  from  the  last  sen- 
tence ! 

Blinded  by  old  ideals,  these  teachers  whip  away,  ad- 
mitting that  they  fail  to  reform  many  of  the  best  boys, 
and  quieting  their  consciences  with  the  horrible  thought 
that  the  evil  course  was  the  natural  one  for  the  boys,  and 
that  they  are  not  responsible  for  their  blighted  lives. 
They  comfort  themselves  with  the  thought  that  it  is 
God's  business,  and  if  he  made  a  boy  so  bad  that  flogging 
would  not  reform  him,  they  at  any  rate  are  free  from 
blame,  because  they  "  have  beaten,  and  beaten,  and  beaten 
him,  and  it  did  him  no  good."  Having  beaten  him,  and 
beaten  him,  and  beaten  him,  they  rest  contented  with  the 
sure  conviction  that  they  have  faithfully  done  their  duty ; 
and  when,  perchance,  the  poor  boy  becomes  a  criminal, 
they  solemnly  say  without  a  blush  or  a  pang :  "  I  knew 
he  would  come  to  a  bad  end,  but  I  am  so  thankful  that  I 
did  my  duty  to  him." 

Ignominious  failure  to  save  the  brave  boys  who  are 
not  cowardly  enough  to  be  deterred  from  doing  wrong 
by  beating  has  taught  nothing  to  some  teachers.  Even 
yet  they  placidly  beat  on,  and  get  angry  if  they  are  re- 
quested to  try  freedom  as  a  substitute  for  coercion  in  the 
training  of  beings  created  in  God's  image.  They  even 
question  the  sanity  and  the  theology  of  those  who  dare 
to  doubt  the  efficiency  of  the  sacred  rod.  They  do  not 
deem  it  possible  that  by  studying  the  child  and  their  own 
higher  powers  they  could  find  easier,  pleasanter,  and  in- 
finitely more  successful  methods  of  guiding  a  boy  to  a 
true,  strong  life  than  by  beating,  and  beating,  and  beat- 
ing him. 

The  keepers  of  asylums  in  the  time  of  Dickens  were 


THE   TRAINING   OF   NEGLECTED   CHILDREN.  315 

equally  severe  on  the  wise  friends  of  the  insane.  They 
honestly  believed  that  terrible  evils  would  necessarily  re- 
sult from  giving  greater  freedom  to  the  afflicted  patients 
in  asylums.  Dickens  took  the  side  of  freedom  and  com- 
mon sense,  and  the  strait-jackets,  and  handcuffs,  and 
fetters  have  been  taken  off,  and,  even  as  a  means  of  re- 
straint, kindness  and  freedom  have  done  better  work  than 
all  the  coercive  fetters  that  "  ignorance,  prejudice,  and 
cruelty  have  manufactured  since  the  creation  of  the 
world." 

So  all  teachers  who  have  grown  wise  enough  have 
found  that  kindness  and  freedom  are  much  better  even 
as  restraining  agents,  and  infinitely  better  in  the  develop- 
ment of  true,  independent,  positive,  progressive  charac- 
ters than  all  the  coercive  terrors  of  rod,  rule,  strap,  raw- 
hide, or  any  form  of  cruelty  ever  practised  on  helpless 
childhood  by  ignorance,  prejudice,  and  perverted  theology 
since  the  creation  of  the  world. 

In  American  Xotes  Dickens  gave  a  long  description  of 
Laura  Bridgman  written  by  Dr.  Howe,  and  showed  his 
intense  interest  in  what  was  then  a  new  movement  in  fa- 
vour of  the  education  of  the  blind. 

Speaking  of  Laura  Bridgman,  Dickens  himself  wrote : 

The  thought  occurred  to  me  as  I  sat  down  in  another 
room  before  a  girl,  blind,  deaf,  and  dumb;  destitute  of 
smell,  and  nearly  so  of  taste;  before  a  fair  j^oung  creature 
with  every  human  faculty,  and  hope,  and  power  of  good- 
ness and  affection  inclosed  within  her  delicate  frame,  and 
but  one  outward  sense — the  sense  of  touch.  There  she  was 
before  me;  built  up,  as  it  were,  in  a  marble  cell,  impervious 
to  any  ra^'  of  light,  or  particle  of  sound;  with  her  poor 
white  hand  peeping  through  a  chink  in  the  wall,  beckoning 
to  some  good  man  for  help,  that  an  immortal  soul  might 
be  awakened. 

Long  before  I  looked  upon  her  the  help  had  come.  Her 
face  was  radiant  with  intelligence  and  pleasure.  Her  hair, 
braided  by  her  own  hands,  was  bound  about  her  head, 
whose  intellectual  capacity  and  development  were  beauti- 
fully expressed  in  its  graceful  outline,  and  its  broad  open 
brow;  her  dress,  arranged  by  herself,  was  a  pattern  of 
neatness  and  simplicity;  the  work  she  had  knitted  lay  be- 


S16  DICKENS  AS  AN  EDUCATOR. 

side  her;  her  writing  book  was  on  the  desk  she  leaned 
upon.  From  the  mournful  ruin  of  such  bereavement  there 
had  slowly  risen  up  this  gentle,  tender,  guileless,  grateful- 
hearted  being. 

The  touching  story  of  Caleb  Plummer  and  his  blind 
daughter  was  intended  to  arouse  interest  in  blind  children. 

Doctor  Marigold  should  be  one  of  the  best  beloved  of 
all  the  beautiful  characters  of  Dickens.  If  any  kind  of 
language  could  awaken  an  intense  interest  in  the  educa- 
tion of  deaf-mutes,  the  story  of  the  dear  old  Cheap  Jack 
must  surely  do  it. 

The  sad  picture  of  the  cruel  treatment  of  his  own 
little  Sophy  by  her  mother;  of  her  dying  on  his  shoulder 
while  he  was  selling  his  wares  to  the  crowd,  whispering 
fondly  to  her  between  his  jokes;  and  the  suicide  of  the 
mother,  when  she  afterward  saw  another  woman  beating 
her  child,  and  heard  the  child  cry  piteously,  "  Don't  beat 
me !  Oh,  mother,  mother,  mother !  " — these  prepare  the 
heart  for  full  appreciation  of  the  tender,  considerate,  and 
intelligent  treatment  of  the  deaf-mute  child  adopted  by 
Doctor  Marigold  in  Sophy's  place. 

I  went  to  that  Fair  as  a  mere  civilian,  leaving  the  cart 
outside  the  town,  and  I  looked  about  the  back  of  the 
Vans  while  the  performing  was  going  on,  and  at  last,  sit- 
ting dozing  against  a  muddy  cart  wheel,  I  come  upon  the 
poor  girl  who  was  deaf  and  dumb.  At  the  first  look  I 
might  almost  have  judged  that  she  had  escaped  from  the 
Wild  Beast  Show;  but  at  the  second  I  thought  better  of 
her,  and  thought  that  if  she  was  more  cared  for  and  more 
kindly  used  she  would  be  like  my  child.  She  was  just  the 
same  age  that  my  own  daughter  would  have  been,  if  her 
pretty  head  had  not  fell  down  upon  my  shoulder  that  un- 
fortunate night. 

It  was  happy  days  for  both  of  us  when  Sophy  and  me 
began  to  travel  in  the  cart.  I  at  once  gave  her  the  name 
of  Sophy,  to  put  her  ever  toward  me  in  the  attitude  of  my 
own  daughter.  We  soon  made  out  to  begin  to  understand 
one  another,  through  the  goodness  of  the  Heavens,  when 
she  knowed  that  I  meant  true  and  kind  by  her.  In  a  very 
little  time  she  was  wonderful  fond  of  me.  You  have  no 
idea  what  it  is  to  have  anybody  wonderful  fond  of  you, 


THE  TRAINING   OF   NEGLECTED   CHILDREN.  317 

•unless  you  have  been  got  down  and  rolled  upon  by  the 
lonely  feelings  that  I  have  mentioned  as  having  once  got 
the  better  of  me. 

You'd  have  laughed — or  the  rewerse — it's  according  to 
your  disposition — if  j'ou  could  have  seen  me  trying  to  teach 
Sophy.  At  first  I  was  helped — you'd  never  guess  by  what — 
milestones.  I  got  some  large  alphabets  in  a  box,  all  the 
letters  separate  on  bits  of  bone,  and  say  we  was  going  to 
WINDSOR;  I  gave  her  those  letters  in  that  order,  and  then 
at  every  milestone  I  showed  her  those  same  letters  in  that 
same  order  again,  and  pointed  toward  the  abode  of  royalty. 
Another  time  I  give  her  CART,  and  then  chalked  the 
same  upon  the  cart.  Another  time  I  give  her  DOCTOR 
MARIGOLD,  and  hung  a  corresponding  inscription  outside 
my  waistcoat.  People  that  met  us  might  stare  a  bit  and 
laugh,  but  what  did  /  care  if  she  caught  the  idea?  She 
caught  it  after  long  patience  and  trouble,  and  then  we 
did  begin  to  get  on  swimmingly,  I  believe  you!  At  first  she 
was  a  little  given  to  consider  me  the  cart,  and  the  cart  the 
abode  of  royalty,  but  that  soon  wore  off. 

The  way  she  learned  to  understand  any  look  of  mine 
was  truly  surprising.  When  I  sold  of  a  night,  she  would  sit 
in  the  cart,  unseen  by  them  outside,  and  would  give  a  eager 
look  into  my  eyes  when  I  looked  in,  and  would  hand  me 
straight  the  precise  article  or  articles  I  wanted.  And  then 
she  would  clap  her  hands,  and  laugh  for  joy.  And  as  for 
me,  seeing  her  so  bright,  and  remembering  what  she  was 
when  I  first  lighted  on  her,  starved  and  beaten  and  ragged, 
leaning  asleep  against  the  muddy  cart  wheel,  it  give  me 
such  heart  that  I  gained  a  greater  height  of  reputation 
than  ever. 

This  happiness  went  on  in  the  cart  till  she  was  sixteen 
years  old.  By  which  time  I  began  to  feel  not  satisfied  that 
I  had  done  my  whole  duty  by  her,  and  to  consider  that  she 
ought  to  have  better  teaching  than  I  could  give  her.  It 
drew  a  many  tears  on  both  sides  when  I  commenced  ex- 
plaining mj'  views  to  her;  but  what's  right  is  right,  and 
you  can't  neither  by  tears  nor  laughter  do  away  with  its 
character. 

So  I  took  her  hand  in  mine,  and  I  went  with  her  one 
day  to  the  Deaf  and  Dumb  Establishment  in  London,  and 
when  the  gentleman  come  to  speak  to  us,  I  says  to  him: 
"  Now,  I'll  tell  you  what  I'll  do  with  you,  sir.  I  am  noth- 
ing but  a  Cheap  Jack,  but  of  late  years  I  have  laid  by  for 


318  DICKENS  AS  AN  EDUCATOR. 

a  rainy  day  notwithstanding.  This  is  my  only  daughter 
(adopted),  and  you  can't  produce  a  deafer  nor  a  dumber. 
Teach  her  the  most  that  can  be  taught  her  in  the  short- 
est separation  that  can  be  named — state  the  fignre  for 
it — and  I  am  game  to  put  the  monej^  down.  I  won't 
bate  you  single  farthing,  sir,  but  I'll  put  down  the  money 
here  and  now,  and  I'll  thankfully  throw  you  in  a  pound 
to  take  it.  There!  "  The  gentleman  smiled,  and  then, 
*'  Well,  well,"  says  he,  "  I  must  first  know  what  she  has 
learned  already.  How  do  you  communicate  with  her?  " 
Then  I  showed  him,  and  she  wrote  in  printed  writing  many 
names  of  things  and  so  forth;  and  we  held  some  sprightly 
conversation,  Sophy  and  me,  about  a  little  story  in  a  book 
which  the  gentleman  showed  her,  and  which  she  was  able 
to  read.  "  This  is  most  extraordinary,"  says  the  gentle- 
man; "  is  it  possible  that  you  have  been  her  only  teacher?  " 
*'  I  have  been  her  only  teacher,  sir,"  I  says,  "  besides  her- 
self." "  Then,"  says  the  gentleman,  and  more  acceptable 
words  was  never  spoke  to  me,  "  you're  a  clever  fellow,  and 
a  good  fellow."  This  he  makes  known  to  Sophy,  who  kisses 
his  hands,  claps  her  own,  and  laughs  and  cries  upon  it. 

"  Now,  Marigold,  tell  me  what  more  do  you  want  your 
adopted  daughter  to  know?  " 

"  I  want  her,  sir,  to  be  cut  off  from  the  world  as  little 
as  can  be,  considering  her  deprivations,  and  therefore  to 
be  able  to  read  whatever  is  wrote  with  perfect  ease  and 
pleasure." 

No  one  ever  read  this  story  and  its  delightful  closing 
without  being  more  deeply  interested  in  deaf-mutes  and 
their  education. 

All  the  children,  especially  poor  and  defective  children, 
should  be  taught  how  much  they  owe  to  Dickens,  that 
they  might  reverently  love  his  memory. 

One  of  the  most  awful  pictures  shown  to  Scrooge  by 
the  Phantom  was  the  picture  of  the  two  "  wretched,  ab- 
ject, frightful,  hideous,  miserable  children." 

They  were  a  boy  and  a  girl.  Yellow,  meagre,  ragged, 
scowling,  wolfish;  but  prostrate,  too,  in  their  humility. 
Where  graceful  youth  should  have  filled  their  features 
out,  and  touched  them  with  its  freshest  tints,  a  stale 
and  shrivelled  hand,  like  that  of  age,  had  pinched,  and 
twisted  them,  and  pulled  them  into  shreds.     Where  angels 


THE   TRAINING   OF  NEGLECTED   CHILDREN.  319 

might  have  sat  enthroned,  devils  lurked,  and  glared  out 
menacing.  No  change,  no  degradation,  no  perversion  of 
humanity,  in  any  grade,  through  all  the  mysteries  of  w^on- 
derful  creation,  has  monsters  half  so  horrible  and  dread. 
"  They  are  Man's,"  said  the  Spirit,  looking  down  upon 
them.  "  And  they  cling  to  me,  appealing  from  their 
fathers.  This  boy  is  Ignorance.  This  girl  is  Want.  Be- 
ware them  both,  and  all  of  their  degree,  but  most  of  all 
beware  this  boy,  for  on  his  brow  I  see  that  written  which 
is  Doom,  unless  the  writing  be  erased.  Deny  it!  "  cried  the 
Spirit,  stretching  out  its  hand  toward  the  city.  "  Slander 
those  who  tell  it  ye!  Admit  it  for  your  factious  purposes, 
and  make  it  worse.     And  abide  the  end!  " 

Dickens  bravely  fought  the  battle  against  the  enemies 
of  the  children,  and  helped  to  win  the  grandest  victories 
of  Christian  civilization. 


<9) 


THE  END. 


INTERNATIONAL    EDUCATION    SERIES. 

lamo,  cloth,  uniform,  binding. 

THE  INTERNATIONAL  EDUCATION  SERIES  was  projected  for  the  pa*. 
pose  of  bringing  together  in  orderly  arrangement  the  best  writings,  new  and 
old,  upon  educational  sul)jects,  and  presenting  a  complete  course  of  reading  and 
training  for  teachers  generally.      It  is  edit^  by  William  T.  Hakris.  LL  D., 
United  States  Commissioner  of  Education,  who  has  contributed  for  the  different 
volumes  in  the  way  of  introduction,  analysis,  and  commentary. 
I.  The  Philosophy  of  Education.    By  Johann  K.  F.  Rosexkranz,  Doc- 
tor of  Theology  and  Professor  of  Philosophy.  University  of  KOnigsbt-rg. 
Translated  by  Anna  C.  Brackett.     Second  edition,  revised,  witij  Cord- 
men  tary  and  complete  Analysis.    Si. 50. 
8.  A  History  of  Education.      By  F.  V.  N.  Painter,  A.M.    Professor  of 
Modern  Languages  and  Literature,  Roanoke  College,  Va.    Revised  edition, 
1901    $1.30  net. 

3.  The  Kise  and  Early  Constltntion  of  UniTersities.     With  a  Scr- 

VET  OP  Medleval  Education.    By  S.  S.  Laurie,  LL.  D.,  Professor  ol 
the  In?titutes  and  History  of  Education,  University  of  Edinburgh.    $1.50. 

4.  The  Ventilation  and  "VVarming  of  School  Buildings.    By  Gilberi 

B.  Morrison,  Teacher  of  Physics  and  Chemistry,  Kansas  City  High  School. 

SI. 00. 

5.  The  Education  of  Man.    By  Friedbich  Froebbl.     Translated  and  an- 

notated by  W.  N.  Hailmann,  A.  M.,   Superintendent   of  I*ublic  Schools, 
La  Porte,  Ind.    $1.50. 

6.  Elementary  Psychology  and    Education.     By   Joseph   Baldwin, 

A.  M.,  LL.  D..  author  of  '*  The  Art  of  School  Management"    $1.50. 

7.  The  Senses  and  the  Will.     (Part  I    of  "The  Mmi>  op  the  CnrLD.") 

By  W.  Pbeter,  Professor  of  Physiology  in  Jena.     Translated  by  H.  W, 
Brown,  Teacher  in  the  State  Normal  School  at  Worcester,  Mass.    $1.50. 

8.  Memory:  TThat  it  is  and  How  to  Improve  it.      By  David  Kat, 

F.  R.  G.  S.,  author  of  "Education  and  Educators,"  etc.     $1.50. 

9.  The  Development  of  the  Intellect.    (Part  11  of  "  The  Mind  of  thi 

Child.")     By  W.  Preter,  Professor  of  Physiology  in  Jena.    Translated  by 
H.  W.  Brown.    $1.50. 

10.  How  to  Study  Geography.     A  Practical  Exposition  of  Methods  and 

Devices  in  Teaching  Geography  which  apply  the  Principles  and  Plans  of 
Ritter  and  Guyot.    By  Francis  W.  Parker,  Principal  of  the  Cook  County 

(Illinois)  Normal  School.     $1.50. 

11.  Education  in  the  United  States :  Its  History  from  the  Earliest 

Settlements.    By  Richard  G.  Boone,  A.M.,  Professor  of  Pedagogy, 
Indiana  University.    $1.50. 

12.  European  Schools ;   or,   What  I  Saw   in  the  Schools  of  Germany^ 

France,  Austria,  and  Switzerland.    By  L.  R.  Klemm,  Ph.  D.,  Principal 
of  the  Cincinnati  Technical  School.     Fully'illustrated.     $2.00. 

18.   Practical  Hints  for  the  Teachers  of  Public  Schools.    3y  Georqb 

HowLAND.  Superintendent  of  the  Chicago  Public  Schools.     $1.00. 

M.  Festalozzi :  His  Life  and  Work,  By  Roger  de  Guimps.  Authorized 
Trai.slation  from  the  second  French  edition,  bv  J.  Russell,  B.  A.  With  an 
Introduction  by  Rev.  R.  H.  Quick,  M.  A.    $1."50. 

15.  School  Supervision.     By  J.  L.  Pickard,  LL.  D.    $1-00. 

16.  Higher  Education  of  Women  in  Europe.    By  Helene  Lanqe,  Berlin. 

Translated  and  accompanied  by  comparative  statistics  by  L.R.  Klemm.  $1.00, 

17.  Essays  on  Educational  Keformeis.       By  Robert  Herbert  QuicfK, 

M.  a..  Trinity  College,  Cambridge.    Only  authorized  edition  of  the  work  M 

rewritten  in  1890.     $1.50. 

M.  A  Text-Book  in  Psycholog^y.  By  Johann  Friedbich  Hekbart.  Trans- 
lated by  Margaret  K.  Smith.    $1.00. 

Id.  P^ehdogy  Applied  to  the  Art  of  Teaching.  By  Joseph  Baldwix, 
A.  M.,  LL.D.    S1.50. 


rHE  INTERNATIONAL  EDUCATION  SERIES.^Ccntinwd,^ 

■  ■»»  ■ — -^ 

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notated  by  W.  H.  Faydtb,  Ph.  D.,  LL.  D.    $1.50. 

21.  Tlie  Moral  Instruction  of  Children.    By  Felix  Abler.    $1.50. 

22.  £nglish  Education  in  the  li^lementary  and  Secondary  Schoola« 

By  Isaac  Shakpuiss,  LL.  D.,  President  of  Haverford  College.     $1.00. 

23k  Education  from  a  National  Standpoint.  By  Alfred  FoT7ix.LgE.  $1.5G. 
24.  Mental  Development  of  the  Child.     By  W.  Preter,  Professor  ot 
Physiology  in  Jena.    Translated  by  H.  W.  Brown.    $1.00. 

«I6.  How  to  Study  and  Teach  History.   By  B.  A.  Hinsdale,  Ph.  D.,  LL.  D., 

University  oi  Micliigan.     $1.50. 

E6.  Ssrmbolic  Education.    A  Commentary  on  Froebel's  "  Mother-Plat." 
By  Susan  E.  Blow.     $1 .50. 

27.  Systematic  Science  Teaching,    By  Edward  Gardnier  Howe.    $1.50. 

28.  The  Education  of  the  Greek  People.    By  Thomas  Davidson.    $1.50. 

29.  The  Evolution  of  the  Massachusetts  Public-School  System.    By 

G.  H.  Martin,  A.  M.     $1.50. 

30.  Pedagog^ics  of  the  Kindergarten.    By  Friedrich  Froebel,    $1.50. 

31.  The  Mottoes  and  Commentaries  of  Friedrich  Froebel's  Mother- 

Play.    By  Susan  E.  Blow  and  Henrietta  R.  Eliot.    $1.50. 

32.  The  Songs  and   Music  of  Froebel's  Mother-Play.     By  Susan  E. 

Blow.    $1.50. 
33    The   Psychology  of  Number.     By  James  A.  McLellan,  A.  M.,  and 

John  Dewet,  Ph.  D.    $1.50. 
34.  Teaching  the   Language-Arts.    By  B.  A.  Hinsdale,  LL.  D.    $1.00. 

35  The  Intellectual  and  Moral  Development  of  the  Child.    Part  I. 

By  Gabriel  Compayre.      Translated  by  Mart  E.  Wilson.    $1.50. 

36  Herbart's  A  B  C  of  Sense-Perception,  and  Introductory  Worka. 

By  Willla-M  J.  Eckoff,  Pd.  D.,  Ph.  D.    $1.50. 

37  Psychologic  Foundations  of  Education.    By  William  T.  Harris, 

A.M.,  LL.D.     $1.50. 
88    The  School  System  of  Ontario.  By  the  Hon.  George  W.  Ross,  LL.  D.» 
Minister  of  Education  for  the  Province  of  Ontario.    $1.00. 

39.  Principles  and  Practice  of  Teaching.    By  James  Johonnot.    $1.5a 

40.  School  IWanagement  and  Methods.    By  Joseph  Baldwin.      $1.50. 
41     Froebel's    Educational    Laws    for    all    Teachers.      By  James    L. 

Hughes,  Inspector  of  Schools,  Toronto.    $1.50. 
42.  Bibliography  of  Education.     By  Will  S.  Monroe,  A.  B.     $2.00. 
4^,.   The  Study  of  the  Child.     By  A.  R.  Taylor,  Ph.  D.    $1.50. 
M.   Education  by  Development.     By  Friedrich  Fkoebel.    Translated  by 

Josephine  Jakvis.     $1.50. 
45.   I^etters  to  a  Mother.    By  Susan  E.  Blow.     $1.50. 
46    Montaigne's  The  Education  of  Children.    Translated  by  L.  E.  Ric 

TOP,  Ph   V.     *1.00. 
47.   The  Secondary  School  System  of  Germany.     By  F^wtaaeK  E. 

Bolton.    .$1.50. 
18.    4dvaneed  Elementayy  Science.    By  Edward  ©.  Howe.    $l.Sa 
«    Dieken.s  as  an  Educator.     By  .!.\3ti:s  L.  Hughes.     $1.S0. 
50    F«i»e*ples    of    Education    Practically   Ai)<p»&ed.       By  James  Bt 

OnnanTnvmTr     BienriMd.    ^.Od. 
«.  Student  Life  and  Customs.    By  Henry  D.  Sheldon,  Pb.D.     $1.96  net. 
m.  An  Ideal  School.    By  Preston  W.  Search.    $1.20  net. 
m   lAt^  Infancy  of  the  Child.    By  Gabriel  Oomraybe.    Iwasteted  bf 

M^yT  WmJon.    Part  II  of  Vol.  35.    $1.20  net. 

He 


TEE  INTERNATIONAL  EDUCATION  SERIES.— {Continued.) 

54.  The  Edacational  Foandations  of  Trade  and  Indnstrr.    By  Vaxlls 

Wabb.     §1.20  net. 

55.  Genetic   Psychology    for  Teachers.      By  Charles  H.  Jtidd,  Ph.D. 

$1.20  net. 

56.  The  Evolution  of  the  Elementary  Schools  of  Great  Britain.     By 

Jambs  C.  Gbbenough,  A.M.,  LL.D.    $1.20  net. 

67.  Thomas  Platter  and  the  Educational  Renaissance  of  the  Six- 

teenth Century.    By  Paul  Monbob.    $1.20  net. 

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$1.60  net. 

OTHBK  TOLUMBS  IN  PBEPABATION. 


».  APPLETON  AND   COMPANY,  NEW  YOBK. 


A  VALUABLE  BCX)K  FOR  TEACHERS 

Principles  of  Educational  Practice 

By  Paul  Klapper,  Ph.D.,  Department  of  Edu- 
cation, College  of  the  City  of  New  York.  8vo, 
Cloth,  $1.75. 

This  book  studies  the  basic  principles  underlying  sound  and  progres- 
sive pedagogy.  In  its  scope  and  organization  it  aims  to  give  (i)  a  com- 
prehensive and  systematic  analysis  of  the  principles  of  education,  (2) 
the  modem  trend  and  interpretation  of  educational  thought,  (3)  a  transi- 
tion from  pure  psychology  to  methods  of  teaching  and  discipline,  and 
(4)  practical  applications  of  educational  theory  to  the  problems  that 
confront  the  teacher  in  the  course  of  daily  routine.  Every  practical 
pedagogical  solution  that  is  offered  has  actually  stood  the  test  of  class- 
room demonstration. 

The  book  opens  with  a  study  of  the  function  of  education  and  a  con- 
trast of  the  modem  social  conception  with  those  aims  which  have  been 
guiding  ideals  in  previous  educational  systems.  Part  II  deals  with  the 
physiological  aspects  of  education.  Part  III  is  taken  up  with  the  prob- 
lem of  socializing  the  child  through  the  curriculum  and  the  school  disci- 
pline. The  last  part  of  the  book.  Part  IV,  The  Mental  Aspect  of  Edu- 
cation, is  developed  under  the  following  sections:  Section  A.  The 
Instinctive  Aspect  of  Mind.  Mind  and  its  development  through  self- 
expression.  Self -activity.  Instincts.  Section  B.  Intellectual  Aspect 
of  Mind.  The  functions  of  Intellect,  Perception,  Apperception,  Memory, 
Imagination,  Thought  Activities.  The  Doctrine  of  Formal  Discipline 
and  its  influence  upon  educational  endeavor.  Section  C.  Emotional 
Aspect  of  Mind.  Section  D.  Volitional  Aspect  of  Mind.  Study  of  will, 
kinds  of  volitional  action,  habit  vs.  deliberative  consciouaiess.  The 
Education  of  the  Will.  Education  and  Social  Responsibility,  the  prob- 
lems of  ethical  instmction,  and  the  social  functions  of  the  School. 

In  order  to  increase  the  usefulness  of  the  book  to  teachers  of  education 
there  is  added  a  classified  bibliography  for  systematic,  intensive  refer- 
ence reading  and  a  list  of  suggested  problems  suitable  for  advanced  work. 

D.    APPLETON     AND     COMPANY 

NEW  YORK  CHICAGO 

5060 


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